


Ambition; Destruction (And the Things We Tell Ourselves)

by brokenmemento



Series: In Other Universes We Exist [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/F, Post-Season/Series 01, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento
Summary: After the events of Sodden, Yennefer and Tissaia are making their way back to Aretuza when they're ambushed and Yennefer is pulled through a portal. When she awakes, a new world unfolds before her eyes with imminent disaster brewing, causing her to search for the answers in an unfamiliar place with a familiar face.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: In Other Universes We Exist [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904554
Comments: 120
Kudos: 232





	1. Prologue/One

**Author's Note:**

> *I've been sucked into this ship so you're probably all going to get tired of me. Sorry, not sorry. That being said, I've relying on minor details from the book lore but spending time strictly within the plot points of the show before going off road. The video games have also been left out and ignored. 
> 
> **Rating will go up in later chapters.

**Prologue:**

One must admit that what Nilfgaard manages to do is impressive. Lying to the south in their own solitude, one man’s quest to ransack the world for the sake of an heir manages to tilt the world. Miles he treks, towns he burns, all for the glory and honor of an emperor who wants everything. 

Yennefer herself had once wanted everything too. What came out of that though was pain, loneliness, and a search for a greater purpose that could never be found. So yes, Yennefer knows a thing or two about the way Emhyr works. Because many years ago, they’d been destined for each other. That was until Yennefer told destiny to fuck right off. 

Aedirn had been familiar, had been a place of comfort to some regard but not quite known. She’d grown up in its backyard, walked its pastures and footpaths, grown-up watching life go by with observant violet eyes. Vengerberg was a town that got attached to her out of tradition and if she were to carry its name on her back forever, she may as well reside as a mage in the kingdom from whence she came. 

She can be blamed for abandoning her original posting all she wants but she surmises that were she to have upheld the order, she’d be nursing more than a stab wound in her abdomen and drained magical energy in the whole of her body. That more dead would litter the ground by her hand than currently do. That she would irreparably have fucked up more lives than she has. 

So while she’s stuck in a medical tent in agony, can almost feel the metal blade being shoved into her skin over and over again, can still taste and smell and feel the flames she poured forth on the earth, it’s really better this way. 

If she were in Nilfgaard, life would be much different. The small, immobile body nearby would not be taking soft breaths every few seconds. Yennefer is for sure that she would have Tissaia de Vries blood on her hands somehow, that she would have wrapped her fingers around her throat and watched the life leave her eyes as she took it all in the name of a country who seems fit to overrun an entire continent and more. 

With Yennefer at the helm. 

Maybe this way, despite what must be coming after Sodden, Yennefer can seek to stop what she knows she would have been a part of before. 

Because people like Emhyr don’t stop in anyone’s wake. People like Yennefer go too far until they lose everything. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

**_One:_ **

After Sodden, they’re both in no shape to use magic and even if Tissaia wanted to, she can’t. Yennefer hasn’t a clue how long the effects of Fringilla’s warfare will ravage Tissaia’s body or even if she will recover. She chooses not to dwell on the prospects or what-ifs, instead trying to think of any conceivable way they can both make it back to Aretuza before Nilfgaard strikes again. 

The only solution that Yennefer can think of is by horseback. 

Brugge and Brokilon would be the straighter, quicker path but the thought of enduring the women of the forests in Brokilon is enough to make Yennefer find another way. While longer, Temerian holds a safer journey (if such lunacy as this could ever be considered safe) which is why it is settled without so many words between the two of them. 

A few ragtag citizens offer to accompany them for the first part of their trip, or at least until they’ve had enough time to heal properly to employ the use of magic again or have a fair chance to defend themselves in a fight. Yennefer presents this and receives only a thin lipped silence that serves as a conditional agreement. 

They leave the keep with two covering the front and two posted in the rear with both she and Tissaia riding in the middle. It makes Yennefer feel inadequate, diminished and weak, but the road could have been a lot less populated, only her and Tissaia to forge ahead alone. The fact that even four have volunteered to see them along speaks testament to the events that have transpired over the last few days.

She supposes when you defend a structure and save a few hundred lives in the mix, some loyalty is bound to arise. Looking over to see Tissaia barely upright on her horse let’s Yennefer know that pride is a foregone conclusion and if they’re ever to make it to Aretuza in one piece, the company is much needed. 

The pace is slow and more often than not, Yennefer has to take the reins of Tissaia’s horse in her hands to guide it along near her mare. She’s fairly certain she’s seen Tissaia sway in her saddle more than is acceptable, but she’s got little solution to it when her own gut is screaming. Because of the meandering style pace, she’s able to hold onto her abdomen and the other horse at the same time while leaning against the pommel and bracing for a fall should it occur nearby. 

The land stays thankfully even but snow capped mountains stand tall in the distance as they make their way along the Chotla River. 

When the days end, Yennefer somehow gathers the strength to help Tissaia down from her mount. She feels small in Yennefer’s hands and her eyes don’t have the same look as before. It’s as if the light inside them has gone out and now ships might be left to crash on the rocks. Yennefer’s boat feels battered without her guidance. 

They ride four days without incident, stopping for nourishment or to quench thirst. Yennefer spends too long feeling the cold water of the river wash over her bare feet. On them, the color changes from gray to pink. Like being born again. 

She uses an old scrap of fabric courtesy of their traveling companions, takes Tissaia to the river’s edge and gently carries away the days from her skin. She keeps to the paths of her body that are safe. Or so they seem. 

When the woman glances up from her head being downcast, looking Yennefer right in the eyes, even her fingers feel dangerous. The expanse of her forearm or the cords of her neck are as perilous as what it must be like to touch the slender curves of her thighs, the jut of her slight hips. 

Yennefer swallows and manages to feel both despondent and grateful for the metallic dust floating in the woman’s veins, a fine line between unimaginable sadness and unending guilt.

The morn to day five dawns cool and Yennefer wakes to the prickle of goose flesh dotting her skin. Nearby, the fire has died out and the sleeping forms of the band lie curled on the ground. When she rises, she undoes her lined cape from her pack and rests it against Tissaia’s sleeping body before wandering off to gather herself for the day. 

The village of Dorian is nearby and Yennefer can almost close her eyes and feel the softness of straw on her back, the coolness of the cotton sheets and strong ale. She aims to drink herself into something short of a stupor for one blissful night before she must go back to the chaotic world that awaits. 

As the sun peeks over the horizon, birdsong nearby, it’s hard to think life any different than before. At this moment, in this shin length green grass and the warmth of the rays heating her skin, it doesn’t feel as if haste is necessary. This quiet pace could go on forever and Yennefer gets a rogue thought that it wouldn’t much bother her if it did. 

The camp begins to stir, reminding her that there is a task to be accomplished, that Aretuza lies in wait beyond and the sooner they arrive, the sooner plans against Nilfgaard can be made to curb their appetite for destruction. 

She makes her way back to camp, sits next to Tissaia as she nibbles on a bite of bread and cheese. Yennefer reaches for her own sampling and takes a bite before she cannot sit quietly anymore.

“If you’re to gain your strength back, you need sustenance. You’re of no good to anyone dead,” Yennefer scolds in a low voice, out of the audio level of the other camp members. 

It’s not warm or comforting for a woman who could still be dying, but Yennefer has never been good at consoling. It’s a skill she was never taught and has only seen glimpses of throughout her life. She knows Tissaia needs it but she knows it would fall on an immune heart, which makes her own ache in her chest. 

“Perhaps that would be the better option,” Tissaia snaps back but yanks a hunk of bread off the loaf then rises and walks away without another word. 

They haven’t talked about Sodden. About how Yennefer destroyed an entire army but managed to save Tissaia still. She’s seen flickers in her, twitches of her lips that yearn to ask, but control is something Tissaia rarely loses and talking about such things jeopardizes a fine line they’ve already been walking with one another. Have been tracing along, toeing, for years.

Yennefer stares at Tissaia’s back as they continue their ride, feeling like things are rearranging in her body. There’s too much swirling around in her brain and it’s almost enough to distract her from the prickle of magic she feels in the distance. Like a brush of fingers against her mind. 

Turning around as best she can in all directions, she sees nothing for miles. Only the rolling grasslands can be seen to the right and the craggy rocks of the mountain range looming closer as they make their way. A tug of uneasiness settles low, but she tries to dismiss the feeling as they trot on. Soon, she feels it again. 

The pulse of it has her hands closing harshly on the reins, enough to send her mare whinnying and rising up on two legs in the air. She manages to calm her down and furrows her brow. Everyone else has stopped to watch the scene with her horse. A few frown, wondering why she’s come to a halt when there’s still so much ground left to cover. When the others notice Tissaia’s facial expression, they grow eerily quiet. 

“Something is wrong,” Yennefer shakes her head in a whisper as Tissaia comes closer. 

“I can’t feel anything yet,” Tissaia says, an almost lamenting tone to her voice. “My magic…”

She never finishes the words as Yennefer reaches forward quickly and jerks Tissaia by the cloak, an arrow whizzing by their heads. The motion jars her side and she hisses in pain but manages to pull Tissaia from atop their horses. 

“Everyone get down!” Yennefer screams, but it’s already too late for one of the young men in their posse, an arrow piercing the hollow of his throat. Blood squirts from the wound and sprays his white animal red.

She’s got Tissaia tucked against her tightly, all but dragging her along as she works to form a phalanx of horses and bodies alike. One of the horses breaks free and one of the other men, Ranulf, looks bewildered. 

“That’s got our coin for the journey!” he cries. 

“Fuck,” Yennefer breathes heavily from the exertion of trying to keep four other people alive and not hit the ground from exhaustion herself. “Take her and don’t you dare let her go.”

She hands Tissaia gingerly to the woman huddled into them and moves through the din of everyone. The horse had left the pack in a dead run but now cries out and stomps its hooves into the ground, bucking wildly. Yennefer manages to close the gap between them and jump to grab the reins. Just as her fingers close around the leather, a concussive burst of magic knocks her from her feet. 

Landing hard, she loses her grip on the horse and her grip on oxygen in her lungs, her side also stinging with fire. She has half a second to gather her composure before a ripple appears on the horizon and another series of arrows burst forth. 

“No!” she screams, rising to her knees and thrusting a shield out to protect Tissaia and the others nearby. 

Suddenly, another rogue burst of magic comes from behind her and all she can do is gasp and fall into the portal that has opened. She thinks she hears Tissaia’s scream before blackness consumes her. 

The portal seals shut and the open field goes quiet once more. 


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Might as well update this one too. I have been mostly writing so I have a lot of this story completed. (There is little else to do in life right now, given the circumstances.)
> 
> Hope you all enjoy! Thank you for every comment/kudos. You've all been wonderful to me as I try my hand at writing these two characters.

She tastes a mineral material in her mouth and coughs wildly, spluttering the dirt from her. She’s pressed face down on the ground and groans as she works to sit upright, the world spinning when she tries. In order to not pass out, she hangs her head low and brings her knees into her chest. When her vision stops swimming, she flips her body to where she is on all fours and drags herself slowly upward. When she takes a look at what’s around her, everything starts coming back. 

As she looks out across where she stands, there’s nothing but thick trees and foliage all around. Most definitely not the grasslands she was standing in just moments ago. She makes her way over to a nearby log, examining its bark exterior. The needles on the saplings lining the ground have a wax-like coating as if to guard them against the elements of the world. 

Yennefer swipes at a particle floating in front of her face as she frowns down at the small trees. Her thinking is fractured, disoriented, and she’s having a hard time concentrating. That’s when she notices another flake and another, all softly floating stark white specks on the landscape. Glancing up, she sees more of it wafting down from the heavens. 

Panic seizes her, a vice grip on her chest. These forests, the snow this time of year. Only one kingdom comes to mind: she’s in fucking Kaedwen. But how? And more importantly, where? 

Forests like these are abundant in the region and she could be in any number of them. What is the probability that she is anywhere near Ard Carraigh or Ban Glean or any other town? Slim to none, she surmises. She could perhaps make a portal, get to Ban Ard, but the idea of showing up at the sorcerer’s school holds about as much appeal as taking a piece of mirror glass to her wrists again. 

The thought hits her-even if she wanted to portal to Ban Ard or anywhere else, could she? She’d been weak after Sodden, every bit of her magical energy sapped from her body. It’s only been a week and she’d had difficulty in even pushing the protection spell out before she had been sucked into the vortex to land here. 

Looking around, she struggles to find anything that will help her conduct the minor incantation she learned many years ago. Becoming frustrated by the lack of plant life due to the cold climate, she sighs and settles for one of the saplings. Using all of her might, she yanks it from the ground and brings her attention to a smaller boulder nearby. 

She knows she must look fucking ridiculous holding a small tree in an attempt to levitate an object ten times the size of the one they were taught with, but she just burned a whole army, didn’t she? Surely this little dally into testing her magical stores won’t backfire on her…

Before she has time to think better of it, she mutters the spell in Elder and watches the rock shake with movement. It shudders a bit in its effort to leave the forest floor and Yennefer has to grit her teeth and clutch the sapling tighter in her hands. Finally, the object withers and crackles in its death while the gray crag of rock hangs midair. Yennefer gasps and drops both to the ground. 

It’s this that makes her acutely aware of everything. How her fingers and toes are cold, her cheeks and nose not far behind. She’d left her lined cape on Tissaia just this morning and had not fetched it back. Her stomach gurgles and feels like a bottomless pit, the food from the morning long gone in her gut. Her abs and ribs ache, a dull force neverending, and she lifts her long cotton shirt and vest to expose her abdomen. The purple and black have spread around like a flower’s bloom and she sucks in a breath when she runs her fingers along the catgut sutures marring her skin.

She’s got to get the fuck out of here, wherever the fuck  _ here _ is. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

Tissaia removes her forearm from her eyes just in time to see Yennefer break from the group and follow after the horse. Turning with an infuriated look on her face, undoubtedly in no mood for what’s happening and even less with how it’s occurring, she scolds Ranulf. 

“Money is of little import if we’re dead,” Tissaia growls. “The last thing that crazy girl needs to be doing is going after that horse.”

His eyes are as large as saucers and it’s hard to remember that he just lived through the battle at Sodden, that any of them did when they’re huddled together like this, acting defenseless. Even now, their best bet for surviving is finding a way to turn the tide of events as they are currently happening. 

Spitting out an uncharacteristic curse, Tissaia reaches into her cloak,  _ no _ ,  _ Yennefer’s _ , to find the small dagger with the rounded hilt. She’d strapped it to herself only hours ago after she’d offered the garment back to Yennefer who had shaken her head solemnly and refused. “Stay warm,” she had commanded, placed her feet in the stirrups of the saddle of her horse, and trotted away.

Tissaia closes her eyes at the thought, flares her nostrils with the intake and expulsion of air. Regaining her composure, she commands the others to grab a weapon as another arrow flies past overhead. 

“They’re coming at us sporadically. Whoever is attacking is using it as a diversionary tactic. The first arrow was just a lucky hit,” Tissaia explains and runs her hands along the horse in front of her, dagger gripped tightly in her palm. 

She watches what she can from behind the animal, but it stands almost three hands higher than her at its withers, so she works with the frantic creature to pull its head back and peek around from under its head. 

The stallion that had been at the lead of the pack rises on its hind legs, broad underbelly extending into the air with its front reaching for the sky. Tissaia watches as Yennefer loses the reins and falls to the ground. Hard. 

The sound hits her ears, a gushing of wind. It raises the hair on her arms and while she can’t feel it, she knows it is the work of spell casting. What kind, however, remains to be seen.

Biting her lip, she wills Yennefer to rise, can do only that as long as any remnant of the dimeritium remains. While better than five days ago, the toxic metal is hanging on to her body, seeming to have no other plans than to ravage it and leave it hollowed out for her to then learn to function again. Fighting a skirmish on the way to Aretuza was not part of nursing herself back to health.

With every passing second, all of which seem to drag and go quickly at the same time, she feels her composure slip. Yennefer is slow to rise and Tissaia has to will her heart to not work so hard it stalls itself out. Just as it looks like she’s about to stand, Tissaia sees a portal open and more arrows, this time much greater in number, launch through the air with arching precision. 

There’s little choice of what must happen next. Absent magic, they can all duck and hope for the best or use their mounts as blockades even more. Both solutions aren’t ideal under any circumstances but unfortunately, this is the way of things. 

“Do your best to take cover under your animals,” Tissaia directs but does a poor job herself due to watching the scene in front of her. 

She can make out Yennefer’s lips moving, sees her hand extend upward. The arrows stop against a defensive barrier that she must have summoned, heedless of her own safety. Taking advantage of the lull in attack, Tissaia ducks out from behind the horse and into the field. Just as she takes a step forward, she sees Yennefer’s body pitch backward and fall through the ground. 

Her heart seizes in her body. A scream rips through the air. When she’s staring at blankness ahead, she isn’t sure whose it was: hers or Yennefer’s. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

Judging by the placement of the stars dotting the canopy, Yennefer deduces that she’s been wandering the forest for close to four hours. There may or may not be a water source ahead, the sound so faint that Yennefer isn’t sure she’s imagining it or not. 

Some time ago, she’d decided to forgo using magic unless absolutely necessary. While on good terms with Kaedwen, the mages of the Brotherhood aren’t someone that she wants to have on her back yet and Yennefer wants to do little to create a ripple effect of magic and alert the wrong kind of attention to her presence. She’d be a fool to think that every person she will encounter will be friend instead of foe. It’s easier to assume everyone is traitorous and be surprised when they aren’t. 

She manages to make it a little farther before she finds an outcropping that signals a cave. Cautiously, she runs her hands along it trying to anticipate anything within. When she finds nothing, she decides to conjure a fire to warm her frozen appendages. With little left after that, she makes a loaf of bread and flask of water to combat the weariness in her stomach. She falls asleep to the prospect of the cool river water, to a town in the distance. 

Her sleep is almost dreamless, a seamless fabric between awake and being pulled under. In the wee hours of the morning though, she imagines the warmth of a nearby body, hears the phantom push of her slight snores. She wakes up reaching for her only to come up with handfuls of air. 

Angrily, she rises and extinguishes the embers of the leftover fire. She carries the realness of the dream like a wedge between her rib cage and heart. It feeds on her other thoughts, breaks them apart with great ease. Yennefer cannot help but wonder if this is happening because of her stubbornness, of Tissaia’s. 

Sodden changed things, whether both of them like it or not. Why reach out to hold someone who you hold no regard for, them just a beast of a burden in your life? Why accept the treacherous touch of someone when their fingertips feel like hatred personified when the past is too great to overcome?

Because neither of these things is true. 

While Yennefer can’t even fathom the depth of Tissaia’s emotions, she does know her own. She’d wanted Tissaia to reach out for years, to show her that she’d meant more than the price she’d paid for her, that she wasn’t just an insignificant presence in her life. 

What she’d harbored for Tissaia hadn’t really been for her at all. It was her own self-loathing and anger turned outward at the only vessel that didn’t become warped when it received it.

_ Tissaia _ . The strongest of them all and quite possibly the most powerful sorceress to exist. Why is no one else as taken with her as they should be? She’s cold and calculated, but she’s always been beyond impressive at the rate at which she can think on her feet, at the sheer amount of knowledge she has about spells and magic. 

There’s a story to her, Yennefer knows, but one she’s never been told. To her knowledge, no one knows a thing about the rectoress and her past life. Yennefer herself has only had scraps, comments here and there alluding to a different version of herself. If only she knew, maybe the divide that’s always been between them could change from a chasm to much of nothing at all. 

Up ahead, the trees begin to thin and Yennefer trumps forward eagerly. When she exits the forest line, she sees a footpath leading into the woods some 100 yards north. A lone cart ambles along it to the east, tiny dots on the horizon with smoke curling into the sky. A grin spreading across her face, Yennefer breaks into a jog and follows the cart to the town. 

The first place she comes to is a beat-up tavern, thankfully, so she bursts into its doors and is met with the scent of stale body odor, potatoes being cooked on open flame, strong ale. It’s divine. 

Food is the last thing she needs to worry with now, instead sorting out how she managed to get from Temerian to wherever this is in Kaedwen. She approaches the barkeep who eyes her warily but remains quiet as she speaks. 

“What town is this?” she asks. Doesn’t make a move to sit on the battered stool, which seems to make the man in front of her even more hesitant to share. Finally, he grunts out a reply. 

“Ay, you’ve found yourself in Daevon.”

Yennefer is slightly taken aback, wondering why on earth the portal managed to plop her on the southwestern borders of the country. Shaking her head, she recovers. 

“I’m needing to get to Aretuza but got separated from my traveling party,” she begins but then sees the dark look pass over the man’s face. She feels her ire rising and rolls her eyes. “What?”

“Only people needing to get to Aretuza are magic folk. Sorceresses and witches,” he rubs his graying stubble and sits down the tankard in his hand. 

“You have something against mages?” Yennefer asks with a lift of an eyebrow. Her fingers itch to cast a spell on this backward thinking peasant. 

“Our king seems pretty fond o’ em. I myself don’t seem much use in their kind of operating,” he shrugs. 

“If not for mages, your fucking country would be overrun by Nilfgaardian soldiers and you’d probably be burned to the ground and slaughtered like all of Cintra. You should be grateful for the fight that every mage at the battle of Sodden put up,” Yennefer warns. 

The dark look previously on his face changes to one of confusion. “What in tha hell are you rambling on about?”

“Nilfgaard is poised to take over the entirety of the Northern Kingdom and you have no knowledge of it? I thought your king was set to send in reinforcements, but they never arrived at Sodden, leaving us to fight alone. I suppose you’ll be nothing but ash too if you follow Cintra’s philosophy,” Yennefer slams a fist on the bar and sneers. 

“Our king would do what he needed to defend this country, but lady, Cintra stands yet and there has been no battle at Sodden.”

Yennefer watches him carefully for any sign of a lie. Has to swallow the bile rising from her belly to her throat when she can find none. 


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer finally runs into a familiar face. It doesn't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned there is nothing to do right now? Because there is nothing to do. (Hence two updates in a week)

After Yennefer disappears, the group is visibly shaken and Tissaia can’t blame them. They’ve huddled around a makeshift fire, but the wind has kicked up and licks the flames outward. She pulls the cloak tighter around her and leans her head to the side. A subtle smell makes its way to her nose and it strikes her in her gut: Yennefer.

She’d stirred when she felt the heavy fabric cover her body in the dawn hours of the morning, saw Yennefer standing over her with a clouded look and then turning to disappear in the faint light of the morning. Her eyes had watched her walk away and when she knew no other eyes were upon her, she had burrowed further into the fabric, Yennefer in almost every sense.

The memory makes her feel incredibly alone, even though three other people sit around in a circle, unsure looks on all of their faces. They are tired and scared and still a little on edge because of everything that has happened, of what might happen next. And, Tissaia supposes, she understands that fear of the unknown. Without her magic, she feels at a loss too.

“You may all go home now,” Tissaia speaks suddenly and raises her head to see them staring at her with uncertainty. “The journey was never going to be easy but you’ve all stayed longer than you should. I can make the rest of the trek alone.”

“But…” one goes to protest but Tissaia does an almost imperceptible jerk of her head. 

“There’s nothing left to discuss. You can and you will,” she says resolutely. 

The three of them share a look, one between villagers that Tissaia sits on the outside of. It takes a few moments before one of them garners the courage to speak again. 

“It’s our duty,” the man shrugs. “You have saved our lives. It is time to return the favor.”

“Even with one of you dead?” Tissaia bites back harshly, agitated. 

“We could have been dead scant days ago, yet here we sit. Already, you’ve given us more time that it feels we were allotted,” the same man returns to her. It’s not a good thing, such devotion, when Tissaia has done absolutely nothing to even learn their names. 

“Yennefer is the one you have to thank, not I, but unfortunately, her presence is now elsewhere,” Tissaia murmurs. It’s quite possibly the most difficult sentence she’s spoken in her entire life, one that’s bore repeating many times in many decades. Tissaia grieves alone. 

Tomorrow she will be forced to leave before the light even reaches the horizon. When their faces greet the expended fire, they will also greet the absence of her body with them. 

She huddles deeper into Yennefer’s cloak, closes her eyes. Tries to think of where that blasted girl can be. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

If there’s still a Cintra and a Sodden, Yennefer has to find some point of reference for what this reality is. While her magic still works here, she doesn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention, namely that which is responsible for pulling her through the portal in the first damn place. 

She sits outside the tavern, feels the snow cool her skin as it comes down in giant flakes. Yennefer knows what she has to do, where she has to return. She has to go to Vengerberg. 

The thought of it stirs a wayward storm of emotions inside. Her memories are unstable to handle, like bombs, so she has never tried to hold on to them for too long in the knowledge that they would explode.

Where she sits now, the trip is too great to make without relying on her talents. She will have to do this by portal. She speaks the spell, watches as the portal pops in front of her. When she steps through, the sights and smells of her previous life slam into her hard. 

She squints against the sun and notices it all. The trees are turning in the late summer air, geese and hens run lackadaisical around the open spaces of the town, the steeple of the church extending to the sky in the background and marking Vengerberg’s otherwise unremarkable appearance. 

Everything looks and sounds and smells the same, right down to the shit and straw as she makes her way to the place where she spent fourteen years of her life. It seems better to approach from the back barn, the place where she first learned she could portal after getting the shit kicked out of her for being a freak. 

The deja vu of standing in the spot again is salt in a wound that’s been picked at for decades since. Yennefer glowers, sneaks along the perimeter to assess the situation at hand. Ducking when she hears noise, she watches the dick of a man who was her stepfather throwing slop to the pigs. 

It’d be so easy a thing, to mutter a spell and watch death jerk and spasm the life from his body. But she’s not here to kill the fucking brute, only to start where her life began. When her mother walks out, she aches for her. The woman had tried but when Yennefer’s father had died, she’d done what she thought necessary to provide for them. That included latching on to a man who kept fucking children into her when he had despised even the thought of Yennefer to begin with. 

If her heart were any weaker, it would stop altogether with what she sees next. A loud and angry scream erupts into the air and out she comes from the doors, hunched over and cowered from the world. Splinters dig into her hands as she grips the barn tighter, watches in anguish as she is hit in the face with the bucket of chicken feed after her stepfather slaps it out of her hand. 

Why the fuck is she still here? The question is the most pressing one in a litany of others. She shouldn’t be in Vengerberg by this point. She shouldn’t have to be subjected to the verbal and sometimes physical abuse of a man who could never love her and a mother who could never protect her. She should be feeling pings of guilt and relief as she looks on her brothers and sisters one last time. By this point in her life, Tissaia should have already taken her away. 

But yet here she is. Here on the fucking farm in fucking Vengerberg and she’s here and not  _ there _ which can only mean…

In this world, she’s not a mage.

In this world, she is just a deformed and unloved farm girl who will always be spat upon and whose true potential will never come to fruition. Take one singular element away and Yennefer isn’t making portals to anywhere. She’s living a completely, devastatingly heartbreaking life. 

Feeling morose, Yennefer rises from her position behind the barn, dusts off the grim upon her knees, and clenches her hands into fists. For a fleeting second, she thinks about walking out from behind where she’s been hidden, running into this world’s version of herself, and spiriting her away to a life that’s worth living. 

The darkness grows though, becomes like sap in her, and she closes her eyes and curls her lips against it. The truth of the matter is, she can’t save this Yennefer because she herself has never found a life worth living either. She’s just been going through the motions too and somehow, that seems like the saddest thing of all. 

_ You’ve still got so much left to give.  _

The words are far away now and so is the person who spoke them.

That’s when her eyes snap open. 

If there is a version of herself, then there has to be one of  _ her _ too. Surely amongst the stacks that Yennefer suspects may give her the answer to the very big problem she is currently experiencing. Yennefer knows what comes next. She must make it to Aretuza. 

She doesn’t think very long about how she’s made Tissaia into a solution. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

They’re snoring when Tissaia quietly takes one of the horses and leads it away. Before going, she places minor protection spells on the lot of them and doesn’t turn around again. 

Once she’s sure she’s well past earshot, she gingerly makes her way atop the animal and points it to the direction of Aretuza. It’s still a day or two ride from where she currently sits atop her horse, yet time is of the urgency if she is to get back to the others, to regain her composure and heal a bit before things go awry again. 

Yet she cannot move.

She keeps her animal in place, looks down at the reins until they begin to blur. She’s slipping, losing purchase on the control she has always tried to exercise in her life. But she can’t deny what’s risen to the surface, what stays tucked below. However, there are surely tears in her eyes and that dull ache that comes along with most of the thoughts connected to the young mage who is no longer beside her. 

She should be used to this, Yennefer disappearing. She’s been doing this for years. What if this is another of her vanishing acts? Tissaia wallows in the bitter possibility. 

But there has been Sodden.

Before, Tissaia is almost sure that Yennefer would have pulled away from Aretuza again, from her. That night though, before the battle, there had been something there. It was and is still inexplicable, the way some things simply don’t have answers. How Yennefer had held her gaze, brushed her fingers against Tissaia when she had taken the ale. Had followed her back to her tent and silently asked for more than Tissaia could give her. 

She’s beginning to wonder now if that was not a mistake. It’s risky to go back to it because it acknowledges what she’s been running from since she wrapped the girl’s wrists and felt like her own were gashed beyond repair. 

A breeze whips up, ruffles the errant strands of brown that have managed to escape the wound hair at the nape of her neck. She shivers, imagines the hesitant fingers there, the downright carefulness and awe of them to be where they were. Like Tissaia would have never allowed them to get close because touch was not a thing they shared.

This is unlike the desperately tense moments at Sodden with quiet sounds and wide eyes, misgivings and denials and regrets. Yennefer is not lost to her. This can be figured out and Aretuza is the way to start. If she’s ever to save Yennefer, she must begin to move.

She wraps the cloak tighter around her, points her horse toward the island of Thanedd. Tries not to feel like she is abandoning Yennefer in the field, never to see her again. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

There is little way into Aretuza without being undetected, as Yennefer would like to enter. Whatever is going on, she needs to gain access to the halls and library to figure out exactly how to make her way back before Nilfgaard has the time to take over the entire continent. 

Yennefer knows the only way into Aretuza without her magic being flagged is by the courier that comes weekly from town. Making the journey by cart, he brings in supplies, mail, and other goods that are needed from the outside. If she’s to gain access, she needs to be on that cart. 

The courier is young and by the looks of him as Yennefer approaches, very flabbergasted to have someone such as herself making her way toward him with such sole focus. He visibly coughs and then looks around for anyone else who he might have mistaken her interest in him for. Finding none, he now swallows and shifts from foot to foot as he works to tie down the goods. 

“Where are you off to this fine day, townsman?” Yennefer asks in her best sultry voice. Really, the day is shit and she already knows where he’s going which is the reason she’s even messing with him in the first place. If ever she’s to get into Aretuza, that is. 

“Uh, I’m getting ready for a delivery,” he stutters, but it comes out more like a question. 

“Let’s not be evasive, shall we?” Yennefer smiles coyly, runs a dark fingernailed hand across his tunic. His eyes flutter shut and she decides there’s no need to cast a spell on this one. She’s got him right where she wants him.

“The witches haven,” he mutters. “Aretuza.”

“Do I detect a bit of contempt toward your customers?” Yennefer works to steady her voice to a lilt and not an aggressive accusation. She’s been a lot of places and seen a lot of things. One thing hardly ever changes: people’s general distrust of mages. Quick to shun them, they’re just as quick to take their coin or remedy too. 

“No,” he shrugs. 

Yennefer brings their faces close together, wrinkles her nose and eyes. “I should like to accompany you on your journey then. We must keep it the most wonderful of secrets though. So tell me, courier, what must be done to secure my position?”

She says the last bit and accosts him by grabbing him solidly with her hand. This Kaedwen man is like so many others Yennefer has encountered and he grows in the simplicity of her action. 

“Unf,” he chokes out a little but his eyes are dilated and ready for a romp. One which Yennefer doesn’t ever intend to give him, but she can make the poor thing believe it a bit, can’t she? 

Idly, she thinks she hears a rustle nearby, but before she has time to process what’s happening, she’s being shoved against the weathered clapboard of the cottage. The air is knocked out of her and she splutters to regain oxygen. A thin dagger is being pressed roughly into her throat, biting into the skin there. It’s all so much to deal with, but what’s even more disconcerting is that she’s staring directly at Tissaia’s face, her blue eyes alight with flame. 

“Leave us, Geoffrey,” she instructs. When he doesn’t move, she spins wildly and barks the rest. “Now!”

Yennefer watches as he tucks his tail between his legs, so to speak, and begins to guide his oxen away from the two of them. 

“Oh, yes, really charming Geoffrey!” Yennefer calls out to him. “We could have had something, but you’ve abandoned me to deal with this crazy bitch!”

Tissaia shoves her even harder and the boards grate against Yennefer’s back. This is all so absurd because Yennefer has got at least three inches on the small woman below, could easily maneuver their positions to gain the upper hand. But because of  _ who _ this is, she’s yet to do so. 

“Who are you?” Tissaia says rather curtly, looking Yennefer up and down. “Why were you trying to gain entrance into Aretuza?”

Yennefer would answer if the words weren’t practically spoken into her mouth. Tissaia is pressed impossibly close, the push of her bosom just below Yennefer’s own. These things coupled with the sharp beauty of her features shallow out her breathing and makes sweat begin to prickle everywhere. 

How long has it been since she’s had a romp in the sheets, a thing so distant that she’s physically reacting to being this close to Tissaia in this way? A few months, give or take, but that seems like an eternity as she looks again into the eyes of a woman who she could just as easily get her throat slit by as opposed  to lifting the skirts of in greedy lust. 

Tissaia picks up this, observant as ever, and even if this isn’t the Tissaia  _ she _ knows, there’s got to be enough similarity to get her to ease off of Yennefer some. An idea lurches into Yennefer’s mind and she decides, why the fuck not?

A mischievous grin spreads across her lips and she leans into Tissaia seductively. Having the desired reaction, of having Yennefer become more seamlessly pressed against her and panting, Tissaia backs away slightly, enough to where Yennefer can flip their positions and Tissaia’s back comes crashing into the structure behind them. The dagger is still at her throat but it’s not as close and Tissaia’s eyes slammed shut as she hit. 

Yennefer pins her with one arm above her shoulder and another against her hip. Gloating a little, Yennefer breathes heavily and raises her eyebrows. “Ay, see? I could do this all day.” The smile fades from her as a well placed knee buries itself in her gut. 

Gasping, she drops to her knees and clutches at herself, Tissaia all but breezing to stand behind her. She yanks roughly at Yennefer’s hair which transfers the ache from one place to the other. She tries to alleviate the pressure of Tissaia’s fingers knotted in her long brown locks with a hand shooting up. The dagger is back at Yennefer’s throat, but this time it’s slicing into it and Yennefer feels a trickle of blood start to make its way down her neck. Another drop falls onto her white blouse and she groans. 

“That’s going to stain, you know,” Yennefer rumbles lowly and fights as best she can against Tissaia, who has now placed her knee in Yennefer’s back. 

“Who needs good fashion when you’re dead,” Tissaia bites back behind her. 

Yennefer’s finally had enough and says the only thing she has in her repertoire. “We know each other!” she shouts in exasperation. “Your name is Tissaia de Vries and you’re the rectoress at Aretuza.”

“Literally anyone with knowledge of magic on this entire continent knows those details,” Tissaia says coldly. 

“Look, I know you! I...I...well, okay, I suppose I don’t know much about you at all, but I do know that you’re incredibly tough and sometimes even brutal. You can be cold and unflinching, but I’ve also seen something deeper in your eyes. There’s more than you let on to anyone, even to me,” Yennefer tries and holds up her hands in the air in surrender. “And I think that even though we haven’t always liked each other, now, we might even be friends. In another life.”

The dagger digs deeper, her words clearly not reaching Tissaia’s cold heart. Yennefer brings her hand to Tissaia’s wrist and tries to pull the dagger back, but Tissaia has too much leverage. She’s got one card left to play and this one isn’t going to be pretty for either of them. Crying out, she lunges forward and ducks her head. Yanks Tissaia up and over her to where she lands with a thunk on the straw below them. 

Yennefer settles her legs on either side of Tissaia’s hips, mounts her, and leans down to shove the dagger skittering across the ground. Tissaia looks enraged, her pretty features contorting her face as she fights against Yennefer. She brings a hot palm across Yennefer’s face which sends her reeling. Trying to use that to her advantage, Yennefer feels Tissaia shift below her hips as she tries to rise and Yennefer has to recover quickly to pin her down again. 

“Someone is messing with time magic and I need in the stacks at Aretuza to find out exactly what is going on so I can get back to my version of reality and leave this one behind!” she finally shouts. 

Mercifully, Tissaia stills. A stern look crosses her visage and her lips thin at the news. Otherwise, she gives nothing away, says nothing either. Yennefer searches her with probing violet eyes and scoffs when nothing pours forth. Rolling off of her, she comes to rest by the woman’s side, trying to regain her breath. 

Above, the sky is a murky gray and the straw beneath them feels damp against Yennefer’s head. She doesn’t care. Lots of things ache in lots of places and she feels unspeakably tired again. “I know you’ve no reason to believe a word I’ve just said but that doesn’t make it not true. I need to get into Aretuza so I can maybe save my world and many others.”

Tissaia sits up finally, blue eyes gazing down at Yennefer. She rises to her knees, reaches across Yennefer’s body and grabs her dagger again. Moving back across her, she stops and gazes down. Yennefer holds her look and something hot passes between them. Its deliciousness ends as Tissaia slices a thin line across Yennefer’s throat.

Her hands immediately go to the wound even though she knows it’s mostly superficial. Tissaia blocks her vision from looking anywhere other than her body which seems to tower over Yennefer even in its small stature. “Get up, girl. We have business to attend to.”

Her feet kick up dirt and straw as she retreats, Yennefer watching her go. “Fuck,” Yennefer mutters and rolls from the ground to follow behind the flowing garments of this version of Tissaia de Vries. 

One thing is now certain, should have always been: no matter what life, Yennefer should do good to never underestimate the woman who leads her now, who is taking her back to some version of the only home she’s ever known.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magic practice, searching for answers, lots of feelings

They stand outside of town, away from prying eyes. Yennefer, still sore from the scuffle, stands immobile. She waits in deference for whatever command Tissaia is going to give. 

Tissaia eyes her warily but then draws her shoulders up and places her hands beneath her breasts, holding them there. Yennefer tries not to track the movement, to think of them against her only minutes ago. Shaking her head, she raises an eyebrow in silent questioning. 

“There’s magic in you. I feel it,” Tissaia states simply and appraises Yennefer carefully. She looks perturbed again and her lips press into the thin line that’s becoming the norm. “Why haven’t I felt you before?”

Yennefer knows she’s referring to the way Tissaia found her in the first place, in another version of their story. Her conduit moment. “The time magic,” Yennefer says, her only explanation. “If we can find out how it works, then maybe I can try to make sense of why this is happening.”

“I am reluctant to agree with someone I’ve known scant minutes, but I will grant you your request. If I’m to enter Aretuza with you, it must be undetected. The other mages do not need to be alerted to your magics,” Tissaia frowns. 

“You’ll need a cloaking spell then. And I’ll have to ride the waves of your portal with you,” Yennefer explains as if the woman in front of her has no idea how this all will work. 

“I’m quite aware,” she snaps and then murmurs a few words. A portal pops behind her and she motions for Yennefer to stand closer. 

Yennefer makes her way over to her, stands by her side. Tissaia has other ideas however and reaches behind Yennefer to draw them into one another. She finds herself against her once again, looking down into Tissaia’s eyes with her own brow furrowed. Tissaia looks slightly ruffled at the proximity of them again, but as soon as it passes over her face, it’s gone. 

“We will enter the portal under my guise. I’ve put the cloaking spell against you but I’d rather be safe than sorry. The other mages can simply not know of your arrival. My head would be on a platter were they to find out,” Tissaia says. Her fingers brush against Yennefer’s riding breech clad hip and Yennefer swallows audibly. 

“Right, let’s get on with it, shall we?” she nods tightly. In a blink, they’re both being hurtled through space toward Aretuza. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

She spends a full day amongst the books, journals scattered, and parchment littering the ground. Her eyes burn and the words in various languages blur as time passes. She’s scribbled notes but they’re disjointed, chaotic. 

The creaking of the door shatters her thoughts and she rubs a fist into her bleary eyes. Tissaia comes through the heavy wooden doors with a tray balanced perfectly on one arm and a few extra tomes in the other. She offers them silently to Yennefer who takes them and places them on the floor beside her. The tray goes to a table nearby. 

“Are you ever going to come up for air?” Tissaia asks and holds her hands clasped together “You’ve been at this quite sometime now.”

Yennefer laughs. “I’m not used to you caring so much.” There is mirth in her eyes until she sees the woman’s clouded expression, remembers herself. “I’m not used to the Tissaia in  _ my _ world caring much.” The clarification eats at her more than it should. 

She startles when this Tissaia settles beside her on the rug, crossing her legs at her ankles demurely but leans in a little on her stretched out arm. “Tell me about her,” she says softly, the flicker of the fire nearby refracting in her eyes. “Your Tissaia.”

Yennefer shuffles uncomfortably, flips a page errantly. The words burrow in her, become dangerous. _Her_ _Tissaia_. “There’s nothing much to tell, other than what I’ve already spoke.”

“If that is so, you wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get back,” Tissaia tries again. 

Begrudgingly, Yennefer begins to speak. “She saved me from that pig farm, taught me to be a mage.” She shrugs and doesn’t press on. Tissaia nudges her lightly and throws a small smile her way. It’s meant to urge her onward. “She’s very clinical in her approach to teaching. Everything has to be precise and she always has the utmost control in every situation she encounters. She speaks for purpose, nothing coming out of her that isn’t planned. It’s what she doesn’t say though that makes her who she is.” She shoots a look to this Tissaia. The watchfulness is returned. 

“She doesn’t know it but her eyes betray her sometimes,” Yennefer throws out offhandedly, then gets uncomfortable with having said it. “Anyway, she’s pulled many a girl from their pathetic lives across the continent. Made them better. Made the matter when they hadn’t really to begin with. Gave them a direction to the way they live. It’s with an iron hand, sure, but somehow, we all came competent sorceresses.” Yennefer stops. “You have, I mean.”

Tissaia’s breathing has evened and it sounds soothing to Yennefer’s ears. She loses herself in it a bit, closes her eyes and dreams of yet another life where this is normal. There is a feather-light touch to her wrist, enough to lift her from reverie. 

“I’m sure that she and I are not so different, hmm?” Tissaia tries. Yennefer inhales a large breath of air, pushes it from her in a weighted sigh. How do you tell someone that they are a day compared to a mysterious night? Yennefer supposes there isn’t a good way, so she avoids it completely.

“I think if ever I’m to figure this out, I’ll need your help,” Yennefer says quietly, somewhere between a request and a confession. 

“I have a very distinct feeling that you don’t need me at all,” Tissaia says with a shake of her head, a depreciating smile playing at the corners of her lips.

“What’s the saying, two heads are better than one?” Yennefer bumps into Tissaia’s shoulder, as if they’re old friends, as if she and the Tissaia in her version of life are the same way. Yennefer grows serious as this thought takes hold and she sobers up quickly. “I want your help.”

Tissaia holds her look, doesn’t turn away when the tension rises exponentially. Yennefer struggles, works to not project residual feelings into this situation with this particular woman. This is not someone she knows even though she looks exactly like  _ her _ , speaks with the same cadence to her words and, dare Yennefer think it, would feel the same if she could touch her for longer than a breath of time.

“We will begin tomorrow,” Tissaia relents and rises. She looks down at Yennefer, the same impossible look passing over her that Yennefer has seen on another woman’s face. “Do get some rest tonight, Yennefer of Vengerberg. The day brings much work to done.” Turning, her footfall creates in Yennefer, makes her less lost in all of this. 

“Goodnight, Tissaia,” Yennefer calls out after her. 

The woman stops, pauses at the door but does not turn around. Yennefer watches her fingers curl against the wood. She leaves with no parting words. 

That night, Yennefer sleeps little. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

When Tissaia walks through the doors to the library, Yennefer is sipping a mulled cider and looking out the window at the rocky outcroppings that lead away from the academy and the hint of the waves beyond them. She glances in Tissaia’s direction quickly and blows on her drink sending tendrils of steam curling in the air. The woman cocks her head to the side and looks around the room. It’s a more controlled version of the chaotic mess Yennefer had made yesterday. 

_ Control your chaos. _

Yennefer takes another sip of her beverage and buries the fact that she worked to clean up a bit of her fury for the woman standing in front of her. Or maybe for the old one. It’s still hard to split the difference when they look so much alike, when they have the same smell trailing behind them in their wake. 

Yennefer swallows and speaks. “Good morning, Rectoress De Vries.”

“My, how formal and deferent. Neither of which I thought would ever come from you a mere two moons ago,” she says with a small lilt in her voice, almost teasing.

“Oh, well let’s see how agreeable you are with a foot in your back and someone’s hands wrapped in your hair,” Yennefer shoots back but then hears how it sounds. Out of context, it’s weighty and lascivious. And  _ fuck _ , sort of that way in context too. Her cheeks flame and she works to amend. “Not that that is something you would ever experience. You know, that someone would do to you or you would have done.” Yennefer is drowning. She starts to wave it off but then glances to see the rise and fall of Tissaia’s chest.

_ So dangerous _ .

“You know what I mean. I’m going to stop talking now,” Yennefer mumbles and rises from her perch in the chair by the window to make her way over to the desk where she has stacked her previous days searching. She points to it silently and Tissaia gives a tight nod and comes closer but says nothing.

“I pulled everything within the last hundred years from the stacks yesterday but I've only seen vague mentions of spells and casting that deal with time. It’s as if they’ve erased it from the compendiums. For what purpose?” Yennefer wonders. 

“This type of magic was not even taught when I was learning the ways of sorcery,” Tissaia admits.

“And exactly how  _ long _ ago was that?” Yennefer rubs. Tissaia’s expression remains stoic but Yennefer can tell she’s struggling not to let her lips turn upward or her eyes begin to roll. 

“Time is a delicate construct to mess with. Yes, it can be bent to create other versions of itself, but any misstep could have irreparable consequences. That’s why the art of working with it has been lost over the centuries. I’m sure we will have to go back much farther. Even so, I would imagine the references to its use are slim.”

Yennefer scans the books on the table, the even vaster amount lining the walls. She’s done a lot of work in her seventy years of life but this suddenly seems daunting. Regardless, she must find the answers that are so elusive at the moment.

“So how would one even gain access to this type of magic if it’s not been a thing taught or practiced in centuries?”

Tissaia’s mouth pulls to the side and she tilts her head slightly, an act of showing her lack of knowledge. “What I do know is that whoever has figured it out must be a Source or, dare I think it, someone with Elder blood who would be a person gifted with magic from very early on. It must have manifested throughout the years.” Her eyes grow concerned. “Chrominance is not to be trifled with even under the best of circumstances. Yennefer, whomever we are dealing with is a very powerful mage indeed. ”

“But not the most powerful,” Yennefer quickly disagrees and leans over the table, resting on her palms and staring Tissaia in the eyes. The woman scoffs and looks exasperated, but Yennefer knows that she knows it’s true. “Whoever is doing this might be powerful, yes. But you are the strongest of us all, of even the sorcerers. I’m good, but if I’m being honest, for once, even your talents exceed mine by decades.”

“Seven,” she mutters and Yennefer stills. Tissaia sighs and explains. “I was about your age when you came into magic. Once young and passionate too, I learned to control the art, the chaos, and the science to it. It led me to who I am now.”

“But absent the intricacies of what I’m searching for,” Yennefer splits hairs. 

“Yes,” Tissaia bites off, pinches the bridge of her nose, and sets her jaw. “You give me much credit and then take it away in the next breath. Honestly,” Tissaia chastises. 

“So let’s begin with what we know. You said the art of time manipulation is known as chrominance. What I’ve been pulled to, in essence, is another point in time but also a different version of life. A split. We need to search for references to anything involving that, however meager,” Yennefer tries to plan. 

“You take the left side and I’ll take the right?”

Yennefer turns and stares at the massive shelves. Groaning, she throws her head back. Why must things never be easy? She huffs and walks off to consult the titles. 

As she’s got her face stuck into a dusty spell book hours (days?) later, she’s about to the point of giving up when she is scanning the words and jerks up suddenly. Placing her finger on the text, she reads and rereads the ancient words. She stands up, practically knocking her chair over as it scrapes across the floor.

“I found something,” she breathes out as excitement takes over her body. “It’s small, but it’s a start.” Tissaia is leaning around her before she knows it and she points to the text. “A spell for moving an object through time. It doesn’t specify the object though, only makes minor mention and a quick incantation. I’m not sure what the words mean though.”

Tissaia reads it and then points to the tray nearby. “Bring that.” Yennefer walks over to it, not sure what Tissaia is referring to, and selects a hunk of the bright orange cheese from the tray. She holds it up with a confused shrug. Tissaia mirrors the motion but waves her over. “It’s not as if I know what I’m doing either.”

“This really is the best day of my life,” Yennefer smiles and rolls her shoulders in satisfaction. “I’m back to getting berated by you and you admit you’re not infallible. Maybe I don’t need to go back to my world after all.”

Tissaia yanks the cheese from her hand, frustrated, and speaks a quick spell to leave it hovering in the air. “I need your hand.”

“Whatever for?” Yennefer replies. 

“This would go much faster if you’d stop being difficult for five minutes. I need to draw on your power as well. It’s a way of fortifying the incantation.”

She bites the inside of her check and raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to hold my hand?” 

Tissaia grabs it and squeezes, hard. Most of Yennefer’s knuckles pop and she falters a bit, letting out a yelp. “Focus or you’re of no good to me.”

“Back to the beginning,” Yennefer grouses but then settles in beside her, feels the weight of Tissaia’s hand against her own. 

They both say the words and the cheese drops from the air and disappears. They both stand immobile and hardly breathing. Nothing happens. 

“Uh…where did it go?” Yennefer looks around. 

Tissaia stays silent, continuing to hold Yennefer’s hand. She turns to search the room but doesn’t see the food anywhere. “Did you say the incantation correctly?” Tissaia asks tersely. 

“I’m practically standing on top of you. You heard every word I spoke,” Yennefer growls.

“You are a little high for my hearing range,” Tissaia shoots back with an amused look etching her features and Yennefer turns to her, letting out a snort. 

“Oh, you’ve got jokes, do you? Since when have you  _ ever _ made light of your…”

“Hush, Yennefer,” Tissaia suddenly cuts her off in a whisper and walks off quickly. 

Yennefer feels her ire rising. “If you’d kindly lay off of the back and forth, my neck would like a break from the whiplash,” Yennefer scolds but then moves to where Tissaia has walked. 

Upon the table sits the cheese, only now it’s changed in color and looks aged. Leaning down, Yennefer jerks back quickly and screws up her face into a grimace. Mere seconds ago, it had been edible. Now it’s past its prime and spoiled. 

“What the hell just happened?” Yennefer says. 

A rare smile flashes across Tissaia’s face. “I think it worked.” She squeezes Yennefer’s shoulders and Yennefer now settles her sight on the item, suddenly in awe. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

Aretuza is a cold lass and as Tissaia maneuvers her horse toward the bridge, she sees that nothing has changed. Across the way stands the monolithic looking efface to the academy with its glowing slender windows that reach to its top. 

Tissaia breathes in the salt air and steadies herself against the wind gusting off the water. Making her way to the front entrance, she speaks the spell to undo the magical locks on the door. They shake but remain impenetrable. 

This isn’t a problem she’s ever had to deal with and knocking on the door like a commoner isn’t something she wants to do but with barely any magic, it’s her only choice. She brings a hand harshly against the wood and metal causing a dull thump to echo through. She leans her head against it in wait, fumbles with the chain at her neck. Wonders if the medallion holds meaning still. 

Finally, the doors part and the sentry on the other side looks at her in puzzlement as she breezes by him with no explanation. She’s tired and it’s the greatest of efforts to make it to her quarters before she is stopped. Mercifully, all she receives are confused looks and a few errant whispers before she’s closing her door and collapsing on the ground. 

Exhaustion, hunger, rage, loss—it all piles up and feels unlikely to ever be uncovered from her body. She’s not sure how long she stays on the ground until a knock brings her back to the present and she’s rising from her knees. 

On the other side, a young girl does a curtsey. “Rectoress de Vries, the council requests your presence at the meeting.” Tissaia nods and then lets out a shaky breath as the girl disappears again.

It’s the last place she wants to be but she finds herself sitting in the chairs fixed in a circle, idle chatter all around her. She glares as she hears a voice lift over the others and voices his surprise. 

“Why, Ms. de Vries. What a pleasant shock to see you back in our midst, so fresh on the heels of battle,” Stregobor announces. 

“Alive, much to your chagrin, I suppose,” Tissaia bites off and the room goes quiet. So much so that one could hear a needle hit the floor. Tissaia, more than fed up, finds little honor in playing the diplomacy card. At least not now. 

“I think I speak for us all when I say the events at Sodden were unfortunate. To lose so many of our brothers and sisters. But you know better than anyone that magic has a price. We cannot take something for nothing. Maybe now we can move past this foolish nonsense and convince the Nilfgaardians that we were wrong to intervene,” the man reasons. 

She feels her lips twitch, ready to strike again. She stops herself but only barely. “May we start the meeting? I’m still feeling a bit under the weather since I managed to get a face full of dimeritium. I’m sure the Brotherhood is well aware of the effects it has on our kind.” 

Stregobor looks downright pale at its mention. He and every other mage in the room know what it does to a body and for Tissaia to be sitting among them is both unheard of and vexing. 

“Yes,” he says slowly and pulls at his beard. “I believe we were going to start with a discussion on the terms of the agriculture treatise…”

“What would it take to perform time magic,” Tissaia says, which severs his sentence, spoken after zoning out for a moment before hopping back. 

“Excuse me?” Stregobor asks. 

“Time magic. Access to worlds and realities that don’t exist on this plane,” Tissaia clarifies and the room goes still once more. 

Artorius clears his throat and tries to give her his best accommodating smile. “These things have not been a part of our way for ages. As practitioners of magic and preservers of chaos and the art, we make sure the students here at Aretuza and those at Ban Ard rely on a focus within the light magics, the ones meant to aid and benefit others. Time magic is a gray area and for that reason, it has been lost to us.” He leans forward, almost conspiratorially but his face holds concern. “Why are you asking of this, Rectoress?”

“No reason,” Tissaia dismisses and rises from her chair, eager to leave the stifling atmosphere of the room. As she reaches the door, a voice calls out behind her. 

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Yennefer of Vengerberg, would it?”

She doesn’t dignify any of them with an answer as she opens the door and exits the meeting. The solution is somewhere. She just needs to quiet the chaos boiling within herself to find it. 


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magic practice, heavy feelings, and a big reveal in more ways than one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Look, I am about to drag two fan favorites in the next three chapters so if they are your characters, I'm sorry! I had to borrow them for plot purposes! 
> 
> **Also this chapter is lengthy. I got carried away.

“Okay, now let's try something bigger,” Tissaia rushes away and stands in the middle of the room. Her magic is an arcane static around her and her facade is slipping a little. She’s...excited. 

“What did you have in mind?” Yennefer asks, poking the molding cheese and making a face. 

“You.”

“What? Are you insane? We’ve practiced all of one time and now you're wanting to send me through space and time? You had to draw off of my power the last time!” Yennefer cries. 

“Mmm,” Tissaia says impassively. “I didn’t have to, I chose to. Any time you can bolster a spell through multiple sources, it improves its success rate. For me to send you, however, I must do the work alone.”

“Do you think that I value myself so little as to let you send me into the unknown? What if something bad happens?”

“Someone else you don’t know at all sent you through a time portal and yet here you stand. Surely I’ve gained your trust over the years,” Tissaia quips. 

“I barely even know you!” Yennefer says in a reacting shout and then stops her outburst when she sees Tissaia’s response to it. “Tissaia…”

“That makes this perfect then. Two unknown factors,” Tissaia interrupts. “Now stand over there.” Yennefer tries to speak but then Tissaia’s voice pushes out even harsher. “I said _now_.” 

Yennefer scuffs her boots on the floor and walks by Tissaia, leaning in close. Close enough to feel the air coming from her flared nostrils. She stares into her blue eyes and doesn’t look away. It’s charged, lightning energy around them, and Yennefer watches as Tissaia’s jaw sets. Yennefer glances down to her lips, flickers back to her eyes. 

“Yes, mistress,” she answers coolly and disengages from the situation brewing. Scuffling along, she does where Tissaia has bid and stands defiantly. 

She has about a second to grouse before Tissaia has rattled off the spell and her body jerks in a spasm. Everything goes black and then she’s pitched forward again, falling to her knees on the stones and spilling her guts everywhere. This time, she does pass out. 

She jolts awake at a strong acidic smell in her nose and chokes out a cough. Spluttering, she looks to her right and sees Tissaia with a flat look on her face, watching as Yennefer works to gain composure. There are strong herbs in her hand to induce consciousness. 

“Oh, good. You didn’t get lost in time and space,” Tissaia comments. 

“No, but I’m not sure if I went anywhere either,” Yennefer groans, still a little sick to her stomach. 

“Alright, let’s go again,” Tissaia motions for Yennefer to stand. 

“You can’t be serious.” It’s gravely when it leaves Yennefer’s throat. 

“I barely managed with one joke. I do believe I’ve reached my limit indefinitely,” Tissaia responds dryly. 

“No,” Yennefer tells her. She’s not in any mood to repeat what just happened. Not now at least. 

“Alright, if you insist,” Tissaia gives in. 

“Really?” 

But then Tissaia says ‘no’ followed by the spell and Yennefer is yanked away again and spit back again for the second time in minutes, this time slamming into a shelf as books fall from the sky. She curls in the fetal position as they rain down and wants to cry. Instead, she just wheezes to avoid making another mess like she did earlier (one Tissaia has already done away with)

“I hate you,” Yennefer whimpers and clutches at her roiling stomach, kicking away the detritus. There’s no ferocity behind it though. 

But then Tissaia is lifting her head from the stones, placing it in her lap, and running her fingers through Yennefer’s hair. Soothing her. Yennefer doesn’t want to let it have its intended effect but it does. She closes her eyes, trying to remind herself that this Tissaia isn’t exactly like the one she’s left behind. Despite the thought, she burrows deeper and lets the woman’s scent envelope her completely. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

Tissaia, out of all of her gifts (both magic and not), considers herself to be a patient woman. Considerably so. But right now, looking through the dust-covered titles and other books she’s known for over a century, she feels composure slipping.

Her back aches, her eyes are tired, her stomach pitches dully. She’s no closer to knowing how or where to find Yennefer than she is at understanding what exactly is going on. She sighs and rubs her face with her hands, massages her temples, and looks around wearily. 

The candle flame flickers and more wax drips down on the collection sitting at the bottom of the plate. She’s been here for countless hours. Defeat is starting to feel close at hand. 

Her mind replays the events on the way to Aretuza, the way Yennefer’s face had looked as she tumbled through the open portal in the ground. Tissaia hears her own scream echo in her mind, the “Yennefer!” pairing with another one she’d repeated on end after looking up to the rocky cliff and seeing Yennefer nowhere in sight. 

She’s lost her twice now in a matter of weeks. Somehow, it’s worse than losing her for fifty years. The constant tug inside of her threatens to erupt on the surface, her poised and calculated features almost ready to crack. 

Sodden, for all the nightmares it has created within her, manages to fill her with one more in a fistful of regrets in her life. While most would love to only have the minute number, Tissaia’s haunt her when she falls into slumber.

That night, the impending battle had been as thick in the air as the incessant sparking of merriment, frivolity, wanton lust, and not wanting to think of the morrow. One of these had followed Tissaia back to her tent, had entered her door with the swiftness and cunning of the person carrying it. Many a night since then, Tissaia has had to bring her legs into her chest, to curl and pound away at the memory of it. It makes her unsteady in her equanimity-the delicate touches to the inside of her wrist, the closeness near her own heated body, the tempo of words being spoken in the place made quiet by only their breathing.

The things that were said (and not) have been enough to chew Tissaia up from the inside over and over again. She’d denied Yennefer, denied herself. In a life where give and take should hold balance, while she voices the need for it over and over again, her own existence remains awfully one-sided. She has never known how to take what has been offered, even in the darkest moments where she has wanted it more than breath.

That night had been one such instance.

“Get ahold of yourself,” she speaks out loud wearily and works against it inside of her again. Her voice sounds lonely in the stacks, lonely in life. It’s rather a matter of why things have become this way instead of how she has managed to survive this long on herself alone. The thought dissipates when she hears a noise behind her.

She brings the candle up to shine around the room. Makes its light reach the dark corners around the perimeter as she slowly scans and holds her breath. The is the faint touch of magic in the air, a weak sense of it hanging loosely all around. 

“Is anyone there?” Tissaia questions and rises from the table, taking tentative steps in the direction of the sound. 

Her candle illuminates more as she moves carefully along, eyes scanning every nook and cranny-body trying to detect magic of any kind. Her own has come back gradually and while not in full force yet, she knows she could do enough to defend herself were something to come upon her. 

She finds no such threat though and lets her brows knit together tightly in a frown. There had been a sound, she’s sure of it, yet the library at Aretuza stands as empty of anything else as it had before she arrived. Sighing heavily, she turns on a heel before something lying on the ground catches her eye. Making her way over to it, she makes a face when she sees the book tossed open and pages fanned out. 

Bending down and keeping the flame away from its paper, she picks up the object and flips it back to the cover, examining the title. Squinting, she looks upward and sees the blackened space where it had once been tucked on the shelf. Midway through the line, there is no way it could have simply fallen from its nestled position. Something or someone would have had to have put hands on it or jolted it from its spot.

This is confusing though because Tissaia has been within these walls for hours and the only soul who has bothered to stay within them. It wasn’t here when she entered either, so how exactly did it come to rest on the ground?

Then she remembers the prickling sensation of magic, of it fizzing away mere seconds after it signaled to her senses. Sitting the candle down nearby, she fans her dress out on the floor and tucks her feet underneath herself. Flipping through the pages, she searches for any reason why this particular book should be on the ground. Just as she’s about to rise and place it back where it came from, she sucks in a breath and brings a trembling finger to follow along with the words. 

“Oh my god,” she exhales, closes her eyes. She pushes out a thought even though she knows there’s little hope of it being answered—

_Are you trying to tell me something, Yennefer? If so, I’m here. I’m listening._

A smile pulls at her lips even though there is no reply. Wherever Yennefer is, they’re somehow connected still. This propels her upward and out, the book gripped tightly under her arm. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

Yennefer looks into the eyes of the young sorceress, dull green ones staring back. To say she intentionally picked this one would be hitting it right on the mark. The bored look on the girl’s face had Yennefer itching to show the young thing how focus should be of the utmost importance. 

The girl, Isolda or something another, holds a wooden sword gripped in her fist and a sudden sneer crosses her features. _Good_ , Yennefer thinks. 

“Alright, come at me and use the spell as I’ve instructed you,” Yennefer commands. 

The girl says the chant and then pops out of sight only to come back in behind her at the shoulder. Yennefer raises her own in combat and stops its downward thrust with a parry. The girl, to her credit, speaks another incantation and a bolt of ice comes for Yennefer’s face which she easily sidesteps with an amused look. Another quick spell and she’s snapped back to her earlier position in time.

So goes the way of the sparring: Another portal, another parry, but then the girl missteps and Yennefer takes note of the disadvantage she’s put herself in. Leaning out a foot, she trips the girl and sends her to the ground hard. While she’s feeling quite satisfied with herself at besting a year two mage, the girl looks nonplussed and bordering on angry.

“You might want to get a handle on that before you spew your chaos everywhere. Get used to not being the best or the smartest or the strongest. There will always be someone or something working against you. Learn to think on your feet and work with what you’re given,” Yennefer tells the surrounding onlookers. She points the wooden sword at Isolda’s throat and raises her eyebrows just in time for the girl to drop her through a portal in the ground and then one about six feet in the air until Yennefer is lying where she once stood.

“Fuck,” she mutters and rolls over to her stomach pushing the sword aside. Her nose comes even with a fancy shoe which is attached to a prim looking dress. 

Tissaia watches her sympathetically but then offers a hand to haul Yennefer to her feet. “That’s all for now girls. More later.”

The crowd scatters and Yennefer dusts herself off. When Tissaia cocks her head to the side, Yennefer holds up a hand. “She did not get the drop on me. I’ve just not healed completely yet.”

Tissaia takes a step forward and touches the edge of her top. “May I?”

Yennefer swallows a very thick gulp but nods. Only letting it rise a couple of inches, it’s still a lot and Yennefer feels everything keenly as Tissaia’s fingers delicately run the line of the healing wound. 

“It looks as if the bruising is retreating and on the fade. Whoever removed your stitches did a suitable job. You should have only a small scar,” Tissaia appraises and then slowly lowers the fabric. 

Yennefer bunches it in her hand and does her own appraising. The woman in front of her doesn’t look the slightest bit ruffled at seeing her skin, of touching her in an almost intimate way. If she had been trying for a clinical approach, she hadn’t done a very good job though. 

Sensing the tenseness, Tissaia turns on a heel and begins to walk away.

“So what do you think?” Yennefer walks beside her, trying to change the subject. “About what I’ve been working on with them.” She’s unable to control the creeping of pride into her voice. For so long, she’s fought the idea of schooling others, thinking she’d be downright shit at it. By the looks of them though, she’s done an adequate job of expanding their magic.

“In another life, you’d have made a fine teacher,” Tissaia admits. “Keep it up. I’m sure your guidance will provide some insight into their tutelage that I might never think to give.” She opens the door and disappears into the building, leaving Yennefer somewhat deflated by the lack of response. 

Pursing her lips, Yennefer squints her eyes and makes her way inside as well. She catches up to Tissaia in the stairwell leading up to her office and private chambers, shoes clipping along at a brusque pace. 

“I thought you might stay and show them some of what we’ve discovered through our studies. I can’t do some of the conjuring and other spells without your magic too,” Yennefer frowns. 

“Another day perhaps?” Tissaia tries with a dismissive tone, sounding a bit far away. 

“Is your docket suddenly filled to the brim?” Yennefer snaps at being waved aside. 

They’ve spent days holed up in the library. Yennefer can’t imagine what could be so pressing now. Tissaia lets out a small growl but finally stops to meet Yennefer’s eyes. 

“I should have mentioned this sooner, but I knew it would probably not be received well. I have matters to attend to tonight that require you to stay in your quarters,” she says cautiously. 

Yennefer lets out a scoffing laugh but then her eyes go wide when she sees the irritation on Tissaia’s face. “You’re not kidding.”

“I’m not a person who does such,” Tissaia says offhandedly. “Anyway, I’ve got little time to prepare and I must make myself presentable for the arrival of the guests, so if you’ll excuse me,” Tissaia says with a wave of her hand as if in goodbye. 

They’re standing at the door to her room, Tissaia’s hand stalled on the knob. She glances back to see Yennefer hasn’t moved. “You’re still here,” she observes coolly. 

“And if you have any intent of me leaving, you’ll explain why I’m being sent to my room without so much as a peep expected out of me,” Yennefer combats. 

Tissaia glares at her but then throws open the door to her space and leaves Yennefer behind again. She knows she’s not to follow, but she’s never been good at doing what she's supposed to, so she pulls open the barrier between them and walks in. 

Simply put, Tissaia’s room is immaculate. It’s refined but not stuffy. Fashionable but lived in. Mysterious yet enchanting all the same. Yennefer stands in awe of it silently. 

If Tissaia is surprised by seeing her inside of the room instead of out in the hall, she doesn’t say. Instead, she hastily picks up something and shovels it into her arms, disappearing behind a dressing screen and out of Yennefer’s view. 

“So what type of guests might be arriving tonight?” Yennefer queries lightly. She jumps back when Tissaia pokes her head from behind the screen. 

“No,” she warns. Her eyebrows are severe and she doesn’t look in the mood to answer anything Yennefer might wonder. With that, she is gone again.

“Maybe dignitaries?” Yennefer tries once more but is met only with silence. “Sorcerers from Ban Ard?” 

Nothing. 

“What will be served at this event that is not for me to know about? Will there be many courses or simple foods with flowing wine and mead?” Yennefer swoons at the thought. “Of course there will be wine and mead. There’s always wine and mead.”

“If you’re so besotted with the idea of drink, I will see to it that you have plenty within your quarters tonight,” Tissaia says surly. 

“Oh, come on. Give me some hint at what all this likely misplaced secrecy is for. At least tell me what a Rectoress of Aretuza would wear to such an event,” Yennefer says frustratingly, her own body carrying her to the dressing screen.

Just when she thinks that the silence is her cue to disappear for good, she hears an acquiescing sigh. 

“I can see why some would find you tiresome,” Tissaia says wearily. Yennefer can’t help but grin.

“When I’m not required to wear breeches for being in the dirt and muck, I quite appreciate a good sense of fashion. Humor me a little and tell me what you intend on selecting.”

“If you must know, I’ve chosen a dress.”

Yennefer rolls her eyes. “My, what a way with words you have. So descriptive. It’s like I can almost picture it.”

“What more is there to explain?” Tissaia says sharply. 

“Well, for one, what color have you selected?” Yennefer shrugs. 

“Green,” is the simple reply.

“Seriously, use your insanely large vocabulary to make me feel inadequate in my intelligence. Paint me some sort of image that I can take back to my mind,” Yennefer suggests. 

More silence. 

Tissaia has always been a hard nut to crack, but this isn’t even something that big or important, instead a simple clothing choice. It’s not as if Yennefer has asked her to dictate every fine detail of what the night will hold. While curious, she knows she will do as Tissaia has asked (for once in her damn life) and drink herself silly and regret it in the morn. 

Just as she’s about to turn a leave, Tissaia’s voice sounds. 

“Imagine a garden, full of the most astounding selection,” she starts and then hums quickly to herself. “It’s hue reminds me of the shade of some stems holding fruit, holding life. Like an olive waiting to be plucked on a vine.”

Yennefer is dumbstruck. The space she’s moved away from where Tissaia is tucked away suddenly seems too vast, so she slowly makes her way back. “And what of the fabric. Explain it to me.” Her voice cracks in her throat a little. She makes a face at its treachery. 

“Silk, of course.” Like it should be obvious.

“Well, yes. But give me more than that,” Yennefer pushes. 

“It’s not my usual, that’s for sure. Less constricting. Smooth, comfortable. Elegant. It should hold up well for tonight’s events.”

“And what of the cut?” Yennefer’s rogue mouth says with no permission at all. She startles herself with it. Behind the screen, a derisive snort. Yennefer shakes her head and presses on. “How am I to know if I would look good in it? Or that I would covet it for my own?” 

“Because _I_ look good in it,” Tissaia launches back and Yennefer’s eyebrows shoot to the sky. 

While she’s not surprised by Tissaia’s overabundance of confidence, she is amused by it. The woman could charm an entire room and them not even know they were under her spell. Yennefer smiles again and leans her back lightly against the screen. “That remains to be described.” A taunt. A sentence that’s like poking a bear.

“The arms taper at my wrists and fan out. The neckline is prominent, eye catching. There’s a long slit up the leg and the back is scooped,” she finally admits. 

By this point, Yennefer has turned around and has her forehead pressed against the screen. She feels lecherous, seedy, but she can close her eyes and see exactly the way it looks on Tissaia’s body. Speaking of which…

“How low is the neckline?” Yennefer whispers and expects no reply at all. As if the question were never asked. 

“Yennefer…” The tone is back to warning again, but Yennefer doesn’t take heed. 

“Tell me how it looks,” she presses in a breathy command. And who is she right now? This is way past the point of being playful or analytical. “Where does it fall on your body?” After a beat, she gets an answer. 

“It does reveal a good expanse of the side of my breasts.” Quiet. Yennefer buckles at the knees. 

“And what of the slit?” Yennefer is mad. She’s left her body and someone else is in it now, chewing on the old bones and sinews and becoming a dark beast who craves flesh. 

“To mid thigh,” is the soft reply. A breathy one. 

“I can only imagine,” Yennefer spills out, bites her lip hard. There is little result in that. “Of how it must look.” She hasn’t even gotten to asking about the carved out fabric at her back. 

What Yennefer cannot know though, would never have the wherewithal to figure out, is that Tissaia has finished dressing ages ago. But now she looks down at her body with new eyes, sees the skin that was just such mere moments ago but has now turned into a quest all its own. 

“I don’t see much sun,” Tissaia admits shyly. “And I always make sure to practice the utmost modicum in terms of my body. What I show. So the skin this dress reveals is rather pale.”

“Touch it for me,” Yennefer requests and that sends Tissaia’s chest heaving. Wildly, she does it. Her hand goes to the inside of it and up over it. 

“It’s soft, pliable,” Yennefer hears her voice close to the separation of the screen. “But it’s been forever since I’ve felt anyone here. Even myself.”

Yennefer lets out a whimper because this is quite possibly the most erotic thing she has ever experienced in her entire fucking life and she once conjured an _orgy_.

She wants to see and she wants to touch and she wants, she wants, she _wants_. Down below, she’s a wreck and her fingers drag across the screen in agony, her chest straining against her blouse and tunic. She could walk around the side of the screen, take Tissaia into her arms, and give her the world she’s built up inside herself. It’s painful not to.

“Tissaia,” Yennefer croaks and she thinks she hears a gasp or sigh or _fuck_ , she doesn’t know but something is happening and she knows it isn’t good. 

“I’ve got to go,” comes out in a clipped tone and she hears shuffling. Yennefer panics. 

“Wait, no, Tissaia, please.” She closes her eyes tightly and grits her teeth, tries to ignore the heat of her own body. 

“What, Yennefer?” Tissaia sounds defeated. 

“I’m sorry,” Yennefer apologizes. Waits. 

She hears Tissaia’s heels on the floor, feels her disappear into a portal she creates. Yennefer is left alone and reeling, an entire night to replay what just occurred. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

True to her word, Tissaia made sure that Yennefer is stocked for the evening. On the table in her room, there sits enough wine to slosh her insides out, bread and cheese and fruit heaped onto a gleaming platter as well. Yennefer glares at all of it. Tissaia is trying to bribe her into inactivity. Reluctantly, she grabs a bottle, flops back onto the bed and groans. 

Trying not to think about what happened in Tissaia’s room is like throwing tinder on a fire—it doesn’t work. Every time she tries to retain focus, the events blindside her again, like getting thrashed against rocks during a surge of ocean waves. Yennefer thinks that less painful than this, the misery of the unknown and her brain filling in inaccurate ideas. Being dashed against the boulders would certainly be easier…

But try as she might, she keeps revisiting it, keeps the door open so she can peer at it again. Now, it feels like a culmination of the moments that have passed between them, the ones that are a little too misshapen to be normal. The ones that are hard to dismiss as interaction built on lives forever circling one another, forever connected. 

She’s tried to leave Tissaia behind in two worlds now, physically in the one to which she belongs and now emotionally in this one. However, the woman is inescapable. Yennefer can’t help that her mind flits to Tissaia whenever she’s angry or in trouble or feeling but a passing moment of joy. This unnerving fact has presented itself with such frequency, Yennefer doesn’t try to battle against it anymore. 

Tissaia is somewhere in this very building, looking radiant no doubt, entertaining who knows what type of pompous fools. A room full of eyes gets to look at her in her silken dress, get to see the sloping expanse of her neck that’s revealed because of the hair she’s pulled atop her head. It’s hard to keep Yennefer’s mind from trailing to the skin of Tissaia’s thigh, imagining the creaminess of it and how her own hand would feel against it. 

She blows a puff of air up, rattling the strands of her brown hair. Her body is hot, aflame, and she feels uncomfortable in her own skin. Well on her way to being drunk doesn’t help matters and if Yennefer is ever to keep her hands off of herself, she must leave this forsaken room despite Tissaia’s wishes. 

Before she parts, she grabs another bottle, tucking it tightly against her chest as her fingers curl around the neck of it. Slowly, she opens her door and peeks out. The hour is late so the students should be well into their slumber. It’s a prime hour to wander the halls for Yennefer though.

She slouches out of the door, missteps, and grabs the wall for purchase. Hiccuping, she lets out a laugh. Nothing is really funny. She’s been yanked from the world she belongs to, this life hasn’t treated her any better, and she’s still not figured out exactly who is to blame for the time magic. On top of that, she just verbally accosted and had very inappropriate thoughts about a version of her school teacher and friend.

 _Friend_.

Yennefer screws up her face in a frown. The word is wrong the second she thinks it because Tissaia has hardly ever been that, both so much less and so much more. She gets it knocked from her though as she collides with someone else. Wine sloshes out of the container and Yennefer grumbles until she sees who's face she is looking at- Fringilla. 

Suddenly everything is so clear—who could possibly have the competency to mess with time magic, who would have the stones. The motive is crystal clear too. Yennefer goes from drunk to sober in a matter of seconds as she drops the bottle to crash on the ground, grabs Fringilla by the throat, and begins squeezing the life out of her. 

The poor woman’s eyes look like they’re going to pop from her head and she kicks her feet like she’s swimming in mid-air. Yennefer can feel a snarl overtake her entire face. When she speaks, it’s verbal venom. “You.” On the word, she works to shove Fringilla in the wall but is hit with a spell that knocks her back on her feet. 

Yennefer hurls a fireball that Fringilla manages to knock away with her own well-timed reaction. Yennefer readies with another. “You wouldn’t listen to reason. You came at people who were your friends, people you had grown up with. You turned your back on Aretuza and betrayed Tissaia. She almost died because of you!” 

With each statement, each accusation, she flings molten balls of fire. She feels her reserves waning, knows she’s got only a few spells left to make a difference. “And now you’re screwing with time magic in order to help Nilfgaard! To reverse the events at Sodden!”

“Yennefer!” is what cuts through the din and she draws up short of casting her next spell. Fringilla looks wary and still stands in a defensive position. Her eyes travel to the source of the pause. 

Tissaia is giving her a look that feels like a sword being shoved slowly in her chest. It’s outrage and disappointment and working to sort out the mess that Yennefer has made. She’s absolutely radiant. 

Her eyes are smoky and hair pulled back from her face but not as severely as usual. The dress, oh, the way it looks clinging to her body sends Yennefer back a few hours to when it was being described in detail through a dressing screen. Tissaia’s breasts are accentuated by the sloping curve on the neck and the slit in the leg works to meet her at the top of her body. It’s so much pale skin that Yennefer’s mouth goes dry and she momentarily forgets she just tried to kill someone with fire magic.

Tissaia’s face is a hurricane and Yennefer is actually very drunk. She makes a face and opens her palms out, extending her hands to the sides in supplication. She opens her arms, almost asking for whatever berating is coming her way. She deserves it after tonight. Especially from Tissaia. 

“Fringilla, leave us. I do apologize for my guest’s behavior,” she says apologetically, calculated, and with perfect control. “Please allow me to make amends in the future.” Fringilla scurries off with a quick glance to Yennefer and then leaves the two women alone in the hallway facing one another. 

Tissaia walks slowly forward, her face unreadable, her body, electric. Yennefer imagines running her palm along the gash of the garment, closes her eyes, and smiles with the dizziness puffing her mind up. Her fingers feel fuzzy even though she just hurled fire from them and her vision swims a little as Tissaia approaches. 

“You’re drunk,” Tissaia observes quietly. 

“Why, yes, rectoress. I do believe I am,” Yennefer nods in agreement. She’s standing so close that Yennefer can smell her perfume. 

“You’ve made quite a lot of noise tonight. I told you to stay put.”

“Well, I got bored and decided to take a spin around the old place. Funny how I run into the one person whom I’ve been wanting to kill for weeks on end now.”

“You must get a grip on yourself. If things are the way you believe them to be then…”

“They are the way I say them to be!” Yennefer yells and cuts her off. 

“You simply can’t fling accusations around at everyone and everything and hope one sticks. You must ground yourself in fact, in truth.”

“The truth is, I’m stuck on a fucking pig farm in this life and you’ve left me there to rot! I will die there, unloved and unchallenged because I’ve not had my conduit moment for you to bring me here,” Yennefer steps dangerously closer. “If Nilfgaard isn’t messing with time magic, who else could it be? Fringilla is the best suspect.”

“Fringilla, as of tonight, had yet to be assigned to a court, Yennefer,” Tissaia says quietly. Yennefer stills at this.

“What? No, that can’t be right. Somehow she’s working her angle here too. I know it.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” Tissaia sighs. Yennefer has no answer. “Go back to your chambers and sleep this off.” This is said low, measured.

Yennefer feels well and truly out of control now, spinning at a rate she will likely never gain purchase. Her words are sullen. She yearns to make something hurt the way she does. 

“How long shall we do this dance where you avoid my bed,” Yennefer mutters, her lids feeling heavy. She pops them back open when her body feels as if it’s in a free fall. 

“Listen to me, and listen well. You will only hear it once,” Tissaia instructs and why, why must she choose the same air that Yennefer is breathing? “You’ve put me in a delicate position, one that I’m likely to not get myself out of because of your antics tonight. You’re wild, reckless.” She stops and looks at Yennefer’s mouth. Yennefer, albeit drunk, does not miss this. “And you’ve seen fit to make me that way as well.”

“Tissaia…”

“We do not know each other, we never have. You come from another life that I do not exist in, not in the way I do here. The woman you are turning me into is not one that I can keep up with.”

Yennefer glares at her then, her inebriated heart feeling the secrets flung back into it, her own words a weapon. The things she’d poured forth, what she had let go. It aches. 

“You might have brought along salt if you were planning on picking at wounds,” Yennefer replies. It sounds gutted. She knows Tissaia doesn’t miss the inflection. Kicking the shards of glass on the floor, she thinks how easy it would be to pick one up again. To do something stupid once more. Instead, she spins around and begins to walk away before remembering Tissaia’s earlier words. 

“You said Fringilla was yet to be assigned before the night. That’s what this was then, the meetings with the kingdoms.” Yennefer dares to ask the next question. “Where was she assigned?”

“Yennefer…

“Answer me, _now_.” It’s devoid of any warmth. 

“Aedirn.”

“Of fucking course,” Yennefer spits out. It seems, no matter what life she’s in, she’s destined to get fucked. 

Yennefer walks on without another look at the enchanting woman who has broken her heart, now in another life as well. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

Doing what Tissaia has asked goes by the wayside as soon as she enters the chambers she was given. Yennefer is still drunk but not in the blackout kind of way she longs for. There are several bottles still on the table, the ironic enabler that Tissaia was before this all came to a head, but Yennefer has no interest in them. No, if she’s to well and truly forget this cursed night, she must leave the halls of Aretuza. 

The closest place with an alehouse she can portal is Gors Velen. So she fucking does. The weather is nice, the night cool, and she lets the slight breeze prickle her heated skin before she steps into the building and shoves herself as far into a corner as she can get. She then proceeds to get sloshed, even more so than she already is. 

She’s always liked King Foltest, even if the man did have a slight familial perversion. Yennefer has seen rulers have far worse proclivities though, the very one she served under having a penchant for murder and sex. Funnily in that order. Yennefer can still feel the phantom of the lifeless babe in her arms. She frowns and motions for another drink. 

The bartender eyes her, looks like he wants to protest, but he has a mug in his hand so Yennefer plasters on her best fake grin and flings a coin in his direction. It lands rather unceremoniously in the middle of his head and he growls, shoving the ale down the jagged bar and sloshing half on the top. 

“Hey, I paid good coin for that!” Yennefer protests as she picks it up. It’s still half full so she shrugs and drinks it in a series of slurping gulps. “Fucking Temerian.”

“Perhaps Aedirn is more your style of scenery then?” a voice asks and Yennefer grows agitated. All she wants to do is pass out on this bar in peace and now someone has the audacity to fuck with her? Hardly. 

“Did I ask you for your fucking two cents?” she spits out, spinning around. She grows eerily still at who stands before her. 

A blue sash is tucked around the slim waist, white and gold blouse too pristine for an alehouse at the witching hour. Her posture swaggers a bit, but the shoulders are tossed back. Her brown eyes are downright feral and a grin Yennefer doesn’t love the look of sits on the woman’s lips. 

Calanthe grabs a mug, plops beside Yennefer. 

She rubs her chin and rests it on her hand, elbow laying on the countertop. Throwing Yennefer another smile, she takes a long pull at her drink and then waves a finger. “You’re a hard woman to catch.”

“I’m just the daughter of a pig farmer. Nothing worth catching,” Yennefer says, disinterested. 

“I think you and I both know that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Calanthe persists and Yennefer’s bullshit detection is on high alert. Something is off, especially with her alluding to knowing more. Which she couldn’t, unless…

“There’s nothing remarkable about me,” Yennefer tries to reiterate. It falls flat. 

“So you incinerating an entire military regiment in a singular battle is nothing to write home about? Seems like you’re exactly the kind of woman I need to know.”

Yennefer’s blood runs cold. This isn’t going well, but there’s little she can do right now in her drunken state to get herself out of this mess, off this wall, and out the door. Suddenly, she yearns for the nightmare of events with Tissaia as opposed to whatever is happening here. 

“And why would you, of all people, be interested in someone such as myself? Doesn’t your kingdom renounce all mage apprenticeships in your court? Instead, you go with druids. How truly forward-thinking you are,” Yennefer says with an eye roll. 

She knows she’s putting coin in her pocket that her mouth can’t pay, especially by being combative with a royal. This one, however, is dead in Yennefer’s world so she finds little use of kissing her feet in this one. That doesn’t change the fact that she shouldn’t have a clue who Yennefer is. 

“I’ve already found one that managed to yank you through a portal. I wouldn’t deign myself into thinking I’ve got the world figured out when I haven’t got a fucking clue,” Calanthe says and it’s ice. Yennefer turns then, past the point of playing coy. 

“It was you then. You’re the one messing with time magic,” Yennefer says incredulously. “Although you could have done better than plopping me in the middle of a forest.”

Calanthe’s face is smug as shit and Yennefer wants to wipe it off with a well-placed arm across her throat. She’s never had much reason to dislike the woman but she’s proving to be a huge arsehole at the moment and the main cause of all of Yennefer’s problems at present. That alone seems like a good enough reason to clock her into next Sunday. 

“Things are a bit touch and go if I’m honest, which is why I had to sniff you out, but it is interesting what one can achieve when a clear goal is in mind.”

“And what might that be? What could Cintra possibly be after? You’ve got the mountains on one side, the sea on the other. You’re an important point between the northern and southern kingdoms. You yourself are known as the lioness of your country, where no man rules and Calanthe takes to battle with the ferocity of a violent beast.”

“Ah, but it seems that my story is soon to end and I do not see it fit for that to come to pass.”

“You’re referring to…”

“Nilfgaard, darling. Do try to keep up,” Calanthe chastises. 

“What is done in one world should not matter here. Breath yet fills your lungs. Why worry yourself over another life that apparently is one of mere circumstance? Look at me. The one you yanked me from, I’m a powerful mage and a damn good one at that. In this one, I muck about all day in dirt and shit and pose a threat to no one. So don’t aim to assume just because you’ve yanked me through a time portal, you’ve got it all figured out either. You’re grasping,” Yennefer accuses.

She jumps when the mug is slammed on the counter so hard, the wood splinters beneath the weight of Calanthe’s fist and the object. Liquid has frothed out and poured everywhere, even some specks flicking to her face which seethes. 

“I refuse to fucking lose my kingdom in _any_ life,” Calanthe says in agitation. “Especially when I’m trying to protect the thing most precious to me.” 

Yennefer knows what she’s referring to-Geralt binding the woman’s granddaughter to him. How she must lie awake each night and wonder when the man with the white hair and the yellow eyes will take her blood away from her for good. It seems like something that might be worth protecting if Yennefer understood matters such as this. But she’s never had the kind of person you’d die for so it doesn’t make a lot of sense. 

Yennefer decides to move to the defensive based on Calanthe’s posture, slowly giving herself space between the two of them. 

The atmosphere is charged and Yennefer isn’t too sure she can rattle off the spell for a portal before Calanthe has skewered her on the sword she now spots resting against the woman’s hip. 

“So why come to me? Why drag me here? What purpose could I possibly serve?” Yennefer shakes her head. 

“If I’m to reset time, to replace one reality with another, I’m going to need a very powerful mage indeed.”

Yennefer can’t keep up the pace at which this is unfolding. For this Calanthe to be alerted to her death in another world, someone from that one had to have crossed over, foretold of the events, and riled the Queen up enough for her to start agreeing to have magic within her court, and pretty questionable magic at that. Moreover, Yennefer does possess a great deal of power but if Calanthe wanted someone truly capable of what she’s asking, there is an obvious option of who tops even Yennefer. Who has figured it out to a certain degree already.

She dares not say her name. 

“Who is helping you?” Yennefer tries to switch tactics. Being the antagonizer hasn’t worked well so far. 

“You, soon. At least I hope that’s how this conversation is going,” Calanthe shrugs but Yennefer notices how her hand goes to the hilt on her sword. 

“And if I don’t?” Yennefer shoots back. She really is shit with playing the long game. 

“I don’t think you’re in a position to say no,” Calanthe frowns and it’s dark. 

“Mmm, perhaps. But I can say it another way,” Yennefer remarks. With a quickly muttered string of Elder, a portal pops and she steps back into it and throws Calanthe a finger. “Fuck off.”

She must make it back to Aretuza. She knows better than to think poking a lioness will bear no ill result.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events come to a tipping point between Alt Tissaia and real Yennefer. Crap also hits the metaphorical fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I'm bumping up the rating for...reasons. I'm not 100% warrants it, but it's getting there.  
> **Thanks for the lovely comments and kudos. I always appreciate them.  
> ***I'm trying to finish this one up so I can continue on to the end of my ficlets, so expect the last chapter drops fairly quickly.

She stumbles through the circle of magic and to the floor, scraping her shins in the thin breeches she wears. She looks like shit and feels almost as bad, but the alcohol is being too difficult in her system to function so she hits her palms on the ground and heaves on the stones. 

A couple of difficult breaths later, there are tears in her eyes and she’d like to roll over and die but there’s too much to accomplish and she cannot sit idle. Or lay. Instead, she rolls from being prostrated on the ground and wobbles over to the basin nearby, plunging her face into the cool water that fills it. 

Pulling back, she lets the water sluice down her face and then wipes it from her eyes, wetting the hair partially in the process. She bends again, low enough to get a mouthful, and sloshes it around well before spitting it on the flames in the hearth, it’s sizzle creating steam. 

She slaps her cheeks a few times trying to get sober, rubs her temples to will the pounding away. It’s late, annoyingly so, and the last thing she needs to do is rouse the building but the crackle of raw energy pulsing in her body threatens to spill over. The events must be relayed for Yennefer cannot sit on them for any more hours until the sun rises. 

Her mind is a racing horse, barreling along, and she can’t stop the barrage long enough to come up with any solid plan. She’s found the culprit to the issue, needs to formulate what to do next. 

There’s no way that Calanthe doesn’t retaliate or look for a way to burn shit to the ground, much like her own kingdom in another world. If she’s really trying to rewrite time, she’ll likely do whatever is needed to protect her own skin and that of her granddaughter. 

Ciri is another wildcard to factor in. What capabilities does she hold in this world? Yennefer has only heard speculation and hearsay back home but she knows that the young girl is powerful in her own right. Might Calanthe be using her too to aid her own cause? There are too many variables in place to land on a solid conclusion. All Yennefer knows is that she must stop whatever Calanthe has planned or else she herself may cease to exist in more life than one. 

Looking around the room, she stumbles to the armoire and removes a dressing gown. Normally not her usual attire, (choosing most of the time to leave it off completely) she surmises that not utilizing it would prove troublesome to the others who inhabit the building. Mainly the one walking through the door and shutting it gently behind her. Yennefer grips the fabric tighter in her hand.

“I could feel you thinking all the way up in my chambers. Where on earth have you been?” Tissaia whispers. 

Her nightgown is much the same as the one Yennefer is holding but slightly better quality. It’s thin but not sheer yet Yennefer can perfectly see the contours of her body. Behind her, her hair has been pulled to the side with a small braid. 

“I’ve had a night, let me tell you,” Yennefer wilts and then goes to remove her shirt before she hears a small noise off to the side. Tissaia purses her lips but her eyesight has fallen to the olive expanse of skin that Yennefer has revealed as she pulled up her clothing. 

Mindful once again of the thin ice she’s walking on, Yennefer motions to herself in displeasure. “I smell like fire and an alehouse. May I at least change before I tell you what I’ve learned?” 

With a tight nod, Tissaia turns around and waits. Yennefer makes quick work of her clothing and knows she probably needs a bath but things such as that can wait. When she’s finished with the gown, she approaches Tissaia and places a soft touch to the inside of her elbow. 

Even though she had to know Yennefer was coming, she still shivers at the contact but recovers quickly. “Come, sit. Tell me what has transpired.”

She chooses the bed, of all places to sit. That leaves the chair for Yennefer but she can’t sit down with everything that has happened tonight. The adrenaline is back in her mood and she feels on edge. The gown swishes at her feet as she walks along, pacing.

“I know who is doing this and why,” Yennefer says breathlessly. “But that presents another problem in and of itself. Calanthe is messing with time in order to reset her defeat by Nilfgaard in my world. She’s doing it for her granddaughter mostly but the thing about royalty is they also have very high regard for themselves as well. She’s trying to bend events in her favor.”

“I don’t understand,” Tissaia frowns, folds her hands in her lap, and laces her fingers together. “Nilfgaard hasn’t moved against anyone here. The kingdoms, by and large, are at peace. Why mess with another version of reality, a different path? That world holds little bearing here.” When she sees Yennefer’s eyes narrow, she fidgets uncomfortably. She looks genuinely regretful of her words. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Yennefer huffs and sits down near her, leaning back against the bed. The floor is cool on her hot skin and she tries not to think of Tissaia’s legs next to her. The floor seemed a safer option rather than joining her where she sits. She looks up at Tissaia, at her blue eyes that dance in the firelight. “But I think this all goes back to me. It’s all my fault.”

Tissaia scoffs. “And how do you figure that? You’re powerful, Yennefer, but the order of time does not revolve around you, no matter how alluring your charm can be.” 

Yennefer tries to make her way past the backhanded compliment as she turns to rest her elbows on the mattress and looks up at Tissaia. “To unravel this, you must know about the life I come from. The things I’ve seen and done. The story is a long one, one I am not sure is worth the time to cover.” 

A hand moves over hers, holds her, and Tissaia leans to look into her eyes. “If we are to prevent Calanthe from this future and past she seems bent on melding together, I feel your words are much needed. Moreover, I want to hear them. Truly.”

Yennefer closes her eyes and wants to cry. Why must this woman make her yearn so? It’s so much easier with the Tissaia back in her normal life. They argue, they pass looks between one another. She can’t possibly imagine a time where they would share openly what they’re both thinking and feeling since Tissaia has never once wavered in her veneer.  _ Except for Sodden.  _

“I refused a posting at Nilfgaard in my world,” Yennefer starts. “Tissaia had promised me Aedirn, swore that she would let me advise in a kingdom that was in my own backyard. But I messed up, let it slip to someone that I trusted that I had elven blood in my veins and that ended whatever was planned for me. I was sentenced to Nilfgaard and I felt my life being swallowed. I couldn’t allow it so I took matters into my own hands. Foolishly.” Yennefer shakes her head in exasperation at her own poor choices.

She tenses as Tissaia slides down to join her on the floor, smoothing the fabric of her sleeping clothes over her knees as she tucks her feet under her. She looks so small and beautiful in the flicker of the firelight and Yennefer feels her leaden heart in her chest. Of possibilities beyond the scope of fruition. 

“If I’ve learned anything from our time together, it’s that you are headstrong, confounding, and quite possibly one of the most gifted mages I have ever had the experience of watching cast a spell. But foolish? Hardly,” Tissaia waves off.

“I went through with my transformation on my own volition. I refused Tissaia as being the one to perform it and instead, set out against her to get what I wanted. I entered that ballroom knowing that Fringilla had been destined for Aedirn and I ripped the posting out of her grasp with one dance with their king. If only I had done as Tissaia asked, went to Nilfgaard and...fuck, I don’t know. I can’t assume to know if I could have changed the destruction they’ve caused, could still be causing even as I sit here right now with you. But I could have tried.” Yennefer feels something drop, warm and heavy on her fingers below. She brings up a hand and sees the liquid in the flickering light of the room. “I’ve blamed Tissaia for years with the way my life turned out but if I’d only listened to her instead of shunning her guidance at every turn, many cities might still be left standing. Many lives might yet draw breath. The blood on my hands—It’s everywhere.”

Tissaia says nothing, her look far away. Yennefer would think her gone but the knitting of her brows together tells her that her words have not fallen on deaf ears. She watches her move to work the hem of her gown between her fingers, a nervous gesture, and by and far, one of the most unsettling things she has ever seen the woman do. 

“In your world…” Tissaia begins, as if choosing her words carefully. “Have you spoken these things to your Tissaia?”

Yennefer laughs without mirth and wipes another tear away. The woman beside her flinches when the barking guffaw erupts and withdraws inside herself a little. Yennefer watches it in remorse as it happens. Now it is her turn to apologize. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to react that way, but ‘my’ Tissaia and I have a very complicated and rocky relationship. In part because of the events which I’ve said but the battle at Sodden left us in a weird place.”

“Is that what caused the events in my chambers earlier?” Tissaia asks and it’s much too quiet and damn, is it still the same span of a day that Yennefer let her bold mouth ask those things? 

She swallows and tries to find some grip on what Tissaia seems to be coming to terms with. “So we’re talking about this…” Yennefer nods slowly.

“Would the Tissaia in your world?”

Now Yennefer does laugh authentically. “Absolutely not. We both seem very good at avoiding.”

Tissaia moves her hand to Yennefer again, looks down at their fingers entwined. She studies the way they look together, the weight at which they press against the other. Air is hard to come by and Yennefer feels everything tunnel. 

“I don’t understand why I’m drawn to you even though I’ve only known you a span of days. It’s probably the connection you have to the version of me in your world. But it doesn’t feel that way all of the time.” The words are frank, honest. Yennefer is reeling.

“I don’t understand either. This isn’t what you and I do. We don’t talk of feelings. We don’t say the things that are deep in us.”

“I’ve often kept to myself when I wanted nothing more than to be free like everyone else. But a particular vision of me is expected, required, for the work that I do. If I’m to guide to the young minds here, I cannot show any sign of lacking poise, grace. I’ve had to become a different version of the person I’ve always been, the darker one I suppose. I’ve not always liked it but it’s kept me alive. I’m starting to wonder at what cost though,” Tissaia explains. She looks over at Yennefer, her expression serious, sincere. “I will do whatever it takes to protect you and aid you against Calanthe. Against whatever might be coming. I suspect your Tissaia would as well. Perhaps always has.”

Yennefer takes her face in her hands, feels the heat and wonder of her skin against her palms. Her lips join the woman’s in front of her and everything shifts again. Her breath leaves her in ragged puffs and she’s all tongue and teeth and hands. But Tissaia....she gives it as good as she gets. She meets Yennefer move for move, touch for touch. 

It’s everything, all of it, and Yennefer drags her onto her lap, letting her fingers make their way to test the edges of the gown where Tissaia’s hands had worried earlier. It’s too fast and too slow and has been building and breaking for decades, both in Yennefer’s world and the one she’s joined as an outsider. She claws the pale flesh on the back of Tissaia’s thighs, feels the softness that was only just a sensation in her mind hours ago. Moving it up, she works to bunch the fabric at the jutting of Tissaia’s hips, feels nothing but warmth below.

What tears Yennefer’s world apart and remakes it is that Tissaia’s hands are fumbling with her gown all while Yennefer exerts the effort to uncover. A nail digs into the muscle and sinew and bone of Tissaia and she hisses at the rough contact, chest heaving. Yennefer should stop, absolutely and without a doubt. But the sounds of her sometimes dreams are right above her and around her and in her ears and it’s not something she wants to let go of.

Her head falls back against the bed roughly when Tissaia jerks the yarn tie that’s laced up against her chest, pulling it through the slits and parting Yennefer’s gown with trembling hands. Dark eyes flit once to Yennefer’s burning purple ones before she loses them to her chest. A hurried hand pushes back against the material of Yennefer’s gown and reveals the curve of her breasts, follows along the slope of it to pull at what’s there and touch it with her mouth.

Tissaia’s forehead rests against Yennefer’s shoulder while she moves against her, learning her skin. If only Yennefer would move her hand downward. She knows exactly what she would find because it’s got to be a mirror of her own, a slick heat that begs to be dealt with in the baser of ways.

Now her own gown is being rucked up around her hips and she’s never going to make it off of the floor if they don’t move this, now. Yennefer grips the flesh of Tissaia’s thigh with one hand and places a sweaty palm on the small of her back to lift her in the air and deposit her on the bed at their backs.

Yennefer is on top of her immediately and she still can’t believe that after everything that has been said and done, she still hasn’t touched her at her apex. The thought gets thrown around in her head as she’s rolled with a force she wasn’t expecting (should have been). 

Tissaia is above her with pink cheeks and glistening lips from the kisses they’ve been sharing. Her own hands have taken to holding her gown up to settle at her hips and she’s letting go with one to take hold of a hand Yennefer has tangled in the sheets. 

She’s soft and kind and utterly stunning as she slowly brings Yennefer’s hand to the edge of the front of her garment, to the front of  _ her _ , and Yennefer stalls out because this isn’t  _ Tissaia _ and why is it so hard not to act reckless? 

“Wa...wait,” Yennefer stammers, and she really is some kind of crazy because she’s trying to still the movement of Tissaia on top of her. Instead, she steels her nerves. “I can’t.”

The words seem to do the trick because Tissaia looks stricken and she backs away from Yennefer’s body, to the closeness of being almost fused together in more ways than one. Yennefer can’t stand it, the way her features turn, and she reaches out to cup her cheek. When Tissaia tries to pull away, she holds on tightly as she sits up and brings their foreheads together. Tissaia’s knees are on either side of Yennefer’s body as she sits on her bent legs. Even though she’s not moving, Tissaia is running and Yennefer is desperately trying not to lose her.

“You were kissing her, weren’t you?” Tissaia asks in a broken whisper. 

Yennefer’s mouth drops but no sound comes out. She searches herself for the right thing to say but knows that inevitably, she’s going to fuck up even worse. “Don’t think that I didn’t want this. That I haven’t wanted it since the moment you bound my wrists to staunch the incredibly stupid mistake I’d made.” She brings her wrists in front of Tissaia’s face, shows her the white puckered skin.

Like she can’t help herself, Tissaia reaches out again. She kisses the lines softly, a fluttery breath across still intact veins that life still flows through. “Another me, you mean.”

Yennefer makes a noise, a rumble-growl deep in her throat and maybe Calanthe does need to start bending time because she can’t get it right in any life she’s stepping in. “There may be nothing there, my great worry, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am a trespasser here and need to stop whatever reset Cintra is planning.”

“Is it selfish of me to wish that things were very different?” Tissaia ponders, moves again. 

Yennefer bites back a yelp with her teeth gripping her bottom lip, the reminder that the woman is still atop her and still very much all around her senses. With a shake of her head, Yennefer closes her eyes and grips Tissaia even tighter. “I think we both wish that.” When she makes to move off of the top of Yennefer, she stops her. “Stay the night with me at least.”

Tissaia looks like she wants to say no but thinks better of it and smooths her palms over her gown to bring it more modestly over her form. She crinkles her eyebrows and huffs out a breath before bringing her body to lay atop Yennefer, legs still hugging her sides. Yennefer’s hands go to the small of her back, her shoulder, nuzzling in closer. 

The irony isn’t lost on her that this might be the only time this occurs in any life. She closes her eyes against it, falls asleep listening to the steady rhythm of Tissaia breathing against her.

______\\\\\\\\_____

When the lights fall on the halls of Aretuza, Tissaia slips from her chamber and makes her way down the paths to several rooms. What she is doing is self-willed, a stunt that Yennefer would pull were she to be anywhere near. If Tissaia has any hope of that ever happening again, she must push forth with what she’s about to do.

The girls all open the door bleary eyed and fresh from some level of slumber. Tissaia bids them to dress quickly and meet her where the eels writhe below their feet. It’s not lost on her that some may very well be resigned to this fate in the future, but for now, Tissaia needs to rely on their young and undisciplined magic. She voices this in a tone devoid of the edge that she feels running finely throughout her own body.

“The reason you’re here tonight is to be strictly off the books, so to speak. This will not be any part of your formal education, but rather a supplemental addendum in the annals of your magical repertoire,” she announces. The girls look reluctant but thankfully stay quiet. “I need you all to work on a rather ancient incantation that hasn’t been used in quite some time.”

They remain all eyes and Tissaia bites the inside of her cheek a bit to quell the rising frustration in her body. She mustn’t show her hand, her eagerness to try the spell she’s found, and for it to work. 

“Many centuries ago, magic was much different. You’ve all been taught about the Convergence of Spheres, the melding rifts in time. Chaos was created this way, as were many creatures never before seen in this world. There was no harmony, only upheaval.

“Over time, the use of magic relating to time and movement through it has been muddled at best. The portals you create are but a dip of your toes into the pool of chrominance. For reasons I cannot extrapolate on at the moment, we need to acquaint ourselves with its workings once more,” Tissaia finishes, awaits the inevitable. 

“But won’t someone know it’s forbidden magic? Or that we are practicing it?” a pupil worries. 

“The world looks a lot different today than it did yesterday or even several moons before that. You’ve been taught that as a mage, your survival depends on your ability to adapt. I cannot stress enough how now, that might be more the case than ever, for all of us,” Tissaia tries to explain. 

“But…”

“Have I made the mistake of selecting the lot of you? Are you not standing here for the reason of you being the best that Aretuza has to offer right now?”

This silences anymore prodding questions. Tissaia nods quickly and stands in the middle of the rock. She motions for each to hold one another’s hand creating a circle around her. When they’ve done so, she tries to calm the erratic pattern of her heartbeat. 

“Speak the words slowly and surely. Enunciate. Make sure the language is precise, am I understood?”

“Yes, Rectoress,” is echoed back and Tissaia nods again, far from satisfied. She holds a finger up and makes a continued motion with her hand. 

The words she’d scanned earlier come to life as she joins in and she feels her body pulled through a portal but not in the usual way. This one seems to vibrate then bend when she’s inside it. She has an instant to view the scene before her, somewhere in Redania judging by the look of the rolling grain hills everywhere. The faces in the fields though are not normal. That’s when Tissaia knows that she’s looking at Dauk and Wozgor people, the original settlers of the country. Somehow, she has been catapulted to the past. 

Like a rein stretching and then snapping, the field narrows on her vision and she’s launched forward and standing in the formation of girls again. 

“Rectoress,” one of them breathes and points to her. Reaching up idly, she sees a lock of her hair and breaks the formation to look in the water at her reflection. There is a shock of pale hair running through the brown. She touches it, frowns, and tries to not think of herself with bleached hair. 

“It must have aged me, the going backward and forward again,” she stands and tries to brush off the oddness of seeing herself changed. “I’m sure the effects are only temporary. Let us try again.”

“For how long?” a wary voice asks.

Tissaia moves back to the middle of the circle of students and nods. “As long as it takes. Until we get it right.”

______\\\\\\\\_____

Yennefer opens her eyes when the weight pressing on her chest becomes confusing in her waking state. Glancing down, she sees Tissaia draped over her and lets out a puff of air, smiling a wide grin into the ceiling. Even though they hadn’t  _ slept _ together, waking up with Tissaia in any regard is something that Yennefer has to fight against from wishing for on end. 

Tissaia stirs above and Yennefer leans her cheek against the side of her head. She wants her to know that the night hasn’t changed anything and that even though she can’t give her what she’s holding for someone else, she’s still an integral part of her life. If not for this woman, this specific one, she’s not sure she would have ever had the chance to make it back to where she belongs. 

_ Where I belong _ , she thinks. The idea should feel better rolling around in herself than it does. 

What is the probability that when she is back, things will go as she wishes them to? In what other life could she possibly have even a fraction of what this one has given her? She’d tried, at Sodden, but the rebuff had turned her hard heart to stone even more. 

Yennefer does not like goodbyes which is why she’s never done them. The impending occurrence of this one is shearing her at the knees. There’s no proper way to tell Tissaia what she’s feeling or convey the gratitude she has toward her. She’s sure it’s this Tissaia sees when she raises her head and her blue eyes look a bit startled at who she has pressed herself against. 

A thousand times she’s told herself ‘no,’ recreated the words in her mind so that before she fell asleep, they almost made sense. Now, staring at Tissaia seems like the most dangerous thing she can be doing because everything she’s worked to build is being dismantled with a single look and absolutely no words. 

Tissaia gives Yennefer a sad and knowing smile but really, Yennefer thinks, she has no idea at all. She cannot begin to fathom the wild bramble of her heart or the way it feels like she’s being squeezed into from the inside. It’s never been like this, not even close, and Yennefer would be false to categorize it as anything other than what it is. 

It’s this, this thing she refuses to speak, that makes her thread her fingers through Tissaia’s hair and bring her lips against the woman once again. She had sworn off the acts that would be a part of allowing herself to take but when there are heat and this passion, who is Yennefer to quell it in any life?

Her flame will burn for this woman no matter where her feet set, no matter the number of days in the passage of time. Tissaia speaks between the press of Yennefer’s lips, the connecting of her own. 

“I thought you said you were waiting…” Tissaia begins but Yennefer catches her hand on its downward descent and looks Tissaia in the eyes. 

“I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong,” she murmurs against the woman’s lips and moves aside her gown to bring Tissaia’s hand against her bareness.

“Oh my god, Yennefer,” Tissaia chokes out. 

Yennefer should probably be less forward or more embarrassed but this is the effect Tissaia has on her, has always had. It’s a constant, a continual feeling that will last until Yennefer is yet to draw breath. 

She works at Tissaia’s sleeping clothes again, finds the same bareness as her fingers drag along the backs of her legs and across the curve of her bottom until it’s bunched at her hips. Then, like the magic that flows into them, they’re touching. 

Yennefer wants to move, really and truly, but Tissaia’s open mouth needs a remedy that Yennefer delivers with her own lips roughly capturing. A feeling, like a shove, moves Yennefer away and she brings her eyebrows together. Trying to shake it off, she reaches up to kiss Tissaia again but the woman is now wrenching herself away. 

“No, I felt it too,” Tissaia pants as she tries to gather herself. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Yennefer rejects and moves her hand between them. She’s jolted with a powerful force that almost takes her air away. Tissaia bats her hand to the side. 

“Yennefer, please…”

They both sit together, immobile, and feel the forceful impact of magic being conducted. Tissaia’s eyes fill with worry and she pulls her gown down, reaching for Yennefer’s hand. When she speaks, the tone is anguished. 

“It’s happening.”

Yennefer doesn’t have to ask, had felt the same rush of energy in her own body too. Whatever moment Calanthe has been waiting on to set her plan into motion is apparently happening now. 

And of course, she couldn’t have worse fucking timing.

Both women rise from the comfort of the bed, the comfort of each other. They dress quickly and dash from Tissaia’s chambers, both their hearts working overtime in their chests. 


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The climax of the time convergence, bittersweet parting, satisfying ends ahead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I was going to drag two of the fan favorites? The other one is revealed in this chapter. Don't hate me! She had reason to want to fix things too. 
> 
> Thanks for all of the kudos/reviews. While this chapter is full of angst, I think I have a solid payoff coming next chapter for every and all versions of the ladies we love.

If they’re to have the element of surprise, the field where Yennefer was snatched from isn’t going to provide that element. All rolling grasslands and hills, there’s not a tree or bush in sight to hide them at all. It’s why she must portal them in meters away in order to survey what they’re up against.

Tissaia stands close to Yennefer’s side and Yennefer tries to get her mind in the fight instead of letting her body revolt because of the contact. With a firm hold on Yennefer’s arm, Tissaia points silently to the spectacle on the hill in the distance.

Yennefer can make out the outline of Calanthe standing with her sword by her side and in full battle regalia. A snort comes from Yennefer’s lips at the annoyance the woman has become, how single minded and utterly ridiculous she’s behaving. The other figure with her is less easy to see, heavy robes and cloak covering their identity as their gloves hands are raised in the air creating a swirling vortex in front of her. Moving their left hand, another portal pops and begins quivering with magic as well. 

Yennefer can’t make out the sound but a handful of other mages are apparently called forth and extend their arms out as well, additional portals popping at their fingertips. They stand apart from each other, enough distance between them so that the portals have room to be created. 

_ ~What on earth are they doing? _

The pull of the magic is almost overwhelming, the sheer amount of it being used in one place at one time. The only other time the volume of what she’s feeling now came close was at Sodden and then, it had been bursts of it, not a collection of it all at once. 

_ ~It looks as if they’re creating pathways to other timelines, much like the one you came through. Theoretically speaking, if all of them were to converge... _

Tissaia’s eyes grow in their consternation. Yennefer can divine the rest by herself: the effects could be cataclysmic. 

_ ~So the best we could hope for is a hard reset of time. The other would be the wiping of the continent as we know it.  _

_ ~We aren’t just talking about the continent, Yennefer. I fear the repercussions could impact the entirety of life as we’ve come to experience it.  _

“Bloody hell,” Yennefer whispers hoarsely. 

Suddenly, all of the training and planning and practice seems not enough. The countless hours and days they’ve spent trying to be prepared for whatever is in the early stages of occurring on the hill in front of them seem not enough. 

“Yennefer, we must try. Otherwise, we may cease to exist at all,” Tissaia emphasizes. 

Her gut feels nervous instead of charged. A lot is riding on the success of this and Yennefer cannot bear to think of the consequences. She nods but doesn’t feel sure like she should. Tissaia mirrors the motion and starts to move away before Yennefer catches her by the arm, pulling her closer. 

“Look, if something happens…”

“Don’t be so fatalistic,” Tissaia puts her gloved hand against Yennefer’s cheek. “This will work.”

Everything is deja-vu and Yennefer tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She agrees anyway. “Okay.”

“Okay then,” Tissaia nods again and reaches up to press her lips where her fingers had been only moments ago. 

They rest there for a little longer, her calm and the force of her life undulating in waves, and Yennefer leans into her trying to internalize the fleeting feeling of peace, of the happiness stretched back to the simplicity of Tissaia’s act. “On my mark?”

“Just like we planned,” Tissaia agrees and then slips into a portal at the same time Yennefer conjures her own.

When Yennefer exits, it's behind the scene but Calanthe turns and gives her a wolfish look that chills her to the bone. When Yennefer tries to make her way toward them, Calanthe unsheathes her sword and raises an eyebrow. 

“Nah-ah,” Calanthe warns. “I knew you’d show, but it was really just a matter of when. Like what I’ve done with the place?”

Yennefer glances around at the portals in chagrin. “I knew you were ambitious yet I failed to realize you were also crazy.”

“I’m doing what must be done. When this is complete, the glory of Cintra will be returned once more. My city and I will rise from the ashes and my granddaughter will not be lost to a vagabond witcher,” Calanthe sneers.

“You should have killed him when you had the chance,” Yennefer shrugs. 

“Finally, something we can agree on,” Calanthe bends at the knees and opens her stance a bit. 

Yennefer takes advantage of her broken posture to shove her with a gusting force that drags her back to teeter on the verge of falling into one of the swirling circles. Her eyes go wide as she pitches forward and brings her rage filled eyes to Yennefer. 

“This ends now,” Yennefer warns. 

“You’re so quick to take the road frequently traveled. I know of your story, of what you’ve undergone. I know that you can understand heartache. Haven’t you ever lost something so dear to you, you’d do anything to get it back?”

“Yes,” Yennefer says after a few seconds. Her own heart flutters with Tissaia’s face, wonders if she’s got any business holding hope where the flutters have come from. “But that doesn’t make this right.”

“Well, if I cannot appeal to you, perhaps your old classmate can,” Calanthe says eerily. Yennefer watches as she walks slowly to the hooded mage and throws back the covering. 

Yennefer walks to the side a bit and then lets out a gasp as her heart drops to her feet. There, standing with a determined grimace on her face, is a visage she’s known for many years. All the way back to Aretuza. The long blonde hair and the olive eyes…

“Sabrina, my gods. What have you done?” Yennefer can barely push out. The betrayal and anguish she feels is so staggering, it’s becoming hard to remember what she’s supposed to be doing. 

“I messed up at Sodden. I hurt you, I hurt our fellow mages. I couldn’t stop,” Sabrina says miserably. 

“You couldn’t help it! Fringilla released the worms. No one could escape their influence, even the strongest of us.”

“I still feel them, Yennefer. I still don’t know which thoughts are my own. I don’t want to live like this. I thought you would understand better than anyone. You’ve lived restlessly. Wouldn’t it be nice to just stop hunting for whatever it is you want?” Sabrina speaks but keeps her eyes on her work too.

Yes, Yennefer would very much like to stop running and hunting and find a place to settle her soul, but there is no telling what fate might befall her should she cave and let these events transpire. And while there is no resolution between her heart and the one she left behind, she at least wants a shot to try. It hits her then, that maybe, for all of her pushing away, she’s changed into who and what she was always supposed to be. That perhaps, her place has always been beside the one person who she wasn’t willing to stand near for longer than she had to.

“We cannot meddle with time, no matter the reality. While your intentions may be altruistic, what if something goes wrong?”

“It’s my biggest regret, Yennefer. I want to fix it. I need to. I knew no one else would have the same stakes as us,” Sabrina lets her vision fall on Calanthe whose face remains stoic. “When I stumbled on this while I healed, I knew I had to do something. Miraculously, it worked. I was able to find the Queen and form an idea of what I could do, what we could do, to right the wrongs.”

“Is there no pulling you away from this ledge you seem rapt to fall over?” Yennefer appeals. 

“This must be done,” Sabrina says apologetically. 

“Then you leave me no choice,” Yennefer warns and closes her eyes. She tries to let serenity into herself. She’s faced many nightmares. It’s time to wake up. “Now!”

Yennefer draws the blade at her hip and lunges at Sabrina to stop her spell casting just as Tissaia walks out of a portal and into Calanthe’s back. She closes it behind her and pulls out her own weapon, swinging it to come down at the woman’s shoulder. It’s an easy parry based on the height difference and Yennefer knows they need to switch opponents to have any success. Sabrina has other ideas when she sees Yennefer’s attention turn toward Tissaia. 

She sends out a concussive push of air which Yennefer must throw up a shield to stop. Once the winds have died down, Yennefer drops the defensive and tries to make her way toward the two women raining down blow after blow on one another. 

Mostly, Calanthe has the upper hand but Tissaia dodges deftly and manages to get her own striking shots in when she can. For what she lacks in size she makes up for in agility. Again, Yennefer tries to make her way to Tissaia but is stopped when Sabrina moves on her. Her portals drop out of existence and Calanthe screams out at her.

“Seems you’re being directed,” Yennefer points out with a jerk of her head. “Better do as you’re told.”

“I am a bit better at it than you, aren’t I? Which begs the question: what has made you choose your combat partner? Seems an odd choice given how much you vilified the woman your entire life.”

She doesn’t intend it but somehow, she leaves herself open to Sabrina’s prying, an unguarded second, but enough for her to catch the truth. Her eyes widen and then her smile turns knowing. Yennefer feels uncharacteristically vulnerable. Sabrina seems fit to use it against her.

“Yennefer, can’t you see? What you’ve managed to find, what you’ve let yourself become entangled in? It’s not the reality we live in. If you want her, as I know you do, help me succeed. Calanthe might get what she wants, but so do we. Do this for Tisssaia,” Sabrina tries again. 

Yennefer lowers her sword. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

“So we meet again, Rectoress. How long has it been?” Calanthe circles. 

Tissaia stays poised at the ready but lets herself gain a much needed reprieve in the fight. She eyes Calanthe warily, keeping an eye on her posture and footwork to make sure she isn’t caught unaware. 

“Based on unanswered missives, years. In person, even longer,” Tissaia answers. 

“I never thought you’d give up trying to convince me of putting one of your girls in my court.”

“And yet a Druid served the purpose it seems.”

“What it boils down to is that no one will see fit to tell me what to do with my kingdom.”

“No,” Tissaia concedes. “Which is perhaps why it was burned to the ground in another life.”

Quickly, she must bring her weapon up to match Calanthe’s wild thrust, barely manages to knock it away due to the sheer force wielded behind it. Hopefully, the woman can’t sustain a barrage at that level. 

“This could solve your big problem over there,” Calanthe insinuates, leaving Tissaia to drag her eyes over to where Sabrina and Yennefer are locked into a spar with words, weapons, and spells. She feels both of their magic zig zagging through the air. Calanthe straightens a little. “I’ve heard the headache that girl has caused you. Lots of noise and theatrics. Not exactly how you run your academy.”

“How my academy is run is of no import to you seeing as you’ve shunned any aid from it for as long as can be remembered,” Tissaia rebukes. 

“Always so poised, so much like ice. Impenetrable. Yet your eyes betray you, Rectoress.” Tissaia’s face must betray her as well because Calanthe throws back her shoulders and goes for a killing blow with her words. “Yennefer of Vengerberg’s blood will be spilled on this day and you will have to watch your precious lover die.”

There’s a scream in the air and Tissaia is slashing a line across Calanthe’s chest, pushing her back as best she can without being overtaken. There is a feral look in Calanthe’s eyes and she grits her teeth as Tissaia pushes against her with an arcane blast. 

“Well, now. I was taking a stab at the last one but it seems I’ve struck a nerve,” she smiles, but then it fades. “Get ready to join her. I shall have my victory.”

Tissaia closes her eyes, speaks the Elder quickly, and waits. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

“Begin the convergence!” Sabrina yells and Yennefer watches in horror as the portals begin to shift. The first set of mages bring them together with a shaking that rattles the ground and everyone in the field works to retain their balance. 

“Shit, Sabrina, just stop this madness!” Yennefer cries and weakens her stance. 

Sabrina’s sword manages to grate upon Yennefer’s and then they’re both standing eye to eye. The woman looks remorseful but resolute too. “This is the only way.”

With those words, Yennefer looks up as more portals pop and through it come a handful of mages from Aretuza. Yennefer watches in pride as the girls form a tight-knit group and advance on one of the portaling mages of Calanthe and Sabrina’s. Another portal has merged with the first two and there are only six more that Yennefer can see.

They’re still outnumbered with Tissaia being occupied with Calanthe and Yennefer caught up in getting past Sabrina. Fear spikes and the plans are shot to shit if portals keep fusing at the rate they are. Panic rises as another one blends. Five left. 

They need help. Tissaia and Calanthe must be split and both she and Yennefer must attack the mage line or else all hope is lost. Worse still, the students can’t take on Sabrina or Calanthe alone. While talented, their own gifts would pale in comparison to the women leading the charge. 

All of the thoughts jumble and Sabrina knocks Yennefer’s sword from her hand, bringing her own to Yennefer’s throat and shoving her down to her knees. 

Time seems to slow and become hyper focused. Yennefer sees it all-the students doing their best to fight against experienced mages with years of advanced spells under their belts, Tissaia desperately matching Calanthe blow for blow, Sabrina holding the iron against Yennefer’s neck. Yennefer hangs her head and her mind goes to the only safe place she knows.

_ Tissaia _ ...

“What the…” Sabrina murmurs and Yennefer turns to see yet another portal flare to life. 

Lightning fills her veins when she sees Tissaia walk through with her weapon at the ready and her own battalion of mages by her side. Yennefer casts a look up at Sabrina with shining eyes. 

“It seems the tables have turned.”

______\\\\\\\\_____

Calanthe bears her nickname well. It is easy to see why she has been awarded the moniker. She’s lithe in her movements and brutal in her strikes. A true force, Tissaia can understand why she’s experienced many victories on the battlefield. Yet on this Temerian plain, she is apt to not give her another. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Yennefer fall to her knees and Sabrina brings a blade to her head. She gasps and turns back just in time to not be impaled by the arc of Calanthe’s sword. It does however tear across her chest and make a gash from breast to shoulder. Blood begins to seep and Tissaia grabs at it with one hand to staunch the bleeding. The wound will not kill her but it will make the fight more difficult. 

However, a powerful energy signals behind her and suddenly, someone is pressing against her back and holding her more upright. She can’t get a good look, at least not straight on, but she’d know the body anywhere.

That’s because it’s her own. 

They rise to the same height, the length of them measuring exact. Fingers and hands and shoulders and legs align and Tissaia breathes raggedly as her own mirror is profile to profile. 

Calanthe’s jaw drops and a sneer pulls at her lips. “No!”

Now certain no one will be attacking her flank, Tissaia turns and is met by her twin, Yennefer’s Tissaia, at her shoulder. The woman doesn’t even glance her direction, instead keeping her eyes on Calanthe in front of them. 

Not a lot has ever been able to rattle Tissaia. This, however, does. She examines her head to hidden toe, body covered in a restrictive looking dress and not at all what she herself has chosen to wear. Her face is devoid of anything readable and when she tries to trace her thoughts, she’s shoved away harshly.

“Is now really the time to pick your own mind? Or should you like some assistance?” Tissaia regards her. 

Tissaia watches as she barks out an order to her girls as the fourth portal converges. When she turns back to Calanthe, she has her own sword ready. 

“Do you know how to use that thing?” Tissaia asks herself. 

“Guess we’re about to find out,” is the answer back. Tissaia watches as a smile works its way onto her lips. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

Yennefer bats away Sabrina’s sword and sends a push, knocking one of the portal mages headfirst into another. Their skulls crack with a sickening thump and both fall to the ground. 

She watches as the two groups of Aretuzan girls struggle to comprehend that they’re on the same side. When they seem to get a handle on it, they manage to drop another mage in their wake. Yennefer has to get Sabrina out of the fight. If her energy is lost to draw upon, the portals will surely collapse and the convergence will fail. 

When Sabrina advances on her again, Yennefer sends a telekinetic blast out then brings the woman off her feet. Quickly, she works her way behind and brings her elbow and arm around to lock on Sabrina’s throat. She’s squeezing with all her might and hopefully, Sabrina passes out before Yennefer manages to break her neck. She’s got more leverage so if she isn’t careful, it could absolutely happen.

Sabrina flails wildly but to no avail. Within moments, her body is sagging limply against Yennefer’s. She puts her on the ground below them and stands up again to survey the area. Three more portals are left and both Tissaia’s continue to work against Calanthe, who has yet to see Sabrina fall. 

Yennefer assumes the window is slim and runs to where the remaining portals stand. She makes quick work of the third mage but his portal has already melded, leaving the lone two portals and their mages to conduct the rest of the converging spell. Their hands shake and Yennefer knows without Sabrina, they’re on borrowed energy and time. In fact, a small trickle of blood frees from one of their noses and is pulled down by the force of the world. 

They both manage to erect a defensive shield, which Yennefer hammers through with her own spell casting with the blinding force of her chaos. 

_ ~Focus your energies  _

_ ~Channel your rage _

They’re both talking to her but it’s the same voice in Yennefer’s head. Spurred on by them, she drops the second to last mage and stands immobile before the remaining one. 

“I’m going home,” Yennefer tells the sole sorceress. Her fist begins to glow with light.

______\\\\\\\\_____

When one mage is left standing, Calanthe throws her weight sideways and tosses a vial at their feet. Black smoke begins to billow and both Tissaia’s have to cover their noses and squint against the blackout. 

The diversionary tactic works long enough for Tissaia to speak a spell, winds shifting the dark fog away. A hand on her shoulder and a wordless point direct her attention toward the small hill which Calanthe is barreling upward toward Yennefer’s turned back. 

“You must do something!” Tissaia tells the other version of herself and the woman gives her a look before blinking out of her spot into thin air. 

Tissaia falls to a knee and feels the hot throb of the wound at her chest. Sucking in a breath, she peels off her vest and works at the golden buttons on the blouse. Ripping open the two sides, she looks down at the damage. Angry and red, the line traverses the expense of her and crimson blood oozes from the cut. Grabbing her discarded vest, she brings it to herself and applies pressure. 

With one hand, she grips her sword and the other, she pushes herself upright again. On shaking feet, she stumbles toward the bodies ahead, toward Calanthe’s last stand, toward herself from another life walking out of a conjured portal, toward Yennefer-wonderful, blissful, pig-headed Yennefer-who works to keep the last two portals from converging with the stacked others. 

She sees Calanthe lunge, finds her own voice raw in her throat as she calls out to warn Yennefer of the approaching weapon. That’s when she watches herself step in front of the slicing down of the blade, hand held up high. 

______\\\\\\\\_____

“You’ve ruined everything!” Yennefer hears Calanthe shout just as she drops the last mage.

So focused on stopping the convergence, Yennefer has left her back undefended. It was a risk she had to take, inviting a killing blow in, if she is to ever save the rest of time. She has an instant to turn and see Calanthe’s blade coming down at her before resigning herself to her own death. While she had wanted so desperately to return to where she came from, seeing Tissaia walk through that portal in her aid was enough to solidify the sacrifice she is making now. 

If she must die so that Tissaia and Sabrina and the other mages may live, so be it. Her eyesight never wavers from Calanthe and she can see the hatred and pain and anger in her firestorm eyes. It’s been a part of her own for so long, she thought no one would ever put it out. 

Her last thought is of Tissaia-the silkiness of her hair between Yennefer’s fingers, the softness of their hips and thighs, the smoothness of lips against her own. The sounds of their breath as Yennefer traced her hands along Tissaia’s shoulder in the glow of the lantern light the night before the battle of Sodden, of how she had felt the ghosting of her mouth before Tissaia had pulled away. 

All of Yennefer’s life manifests itself back to her. It seems to materialize from thin air as well because when Yennefer opens her eyes, the small woman is stepping in front of her to block the blade from slicing into Yennefer’s skin. She has enough time to reach out and touch her waist, hear a rattled off spell as Calanthe brings the weapon down on Tissaia’s hand. 

A brightness blinds her for a split instant and then she brings her vision back to see Tissaia holding the sharpness of the iron, her small hand wrapped as best it can around it. The incantation had helped but blood still slides down her fingers and wrist. Yennefer can tell she’s in agony but trying to hold it together. 

“We cannot change what has already happened, no matter how hard we try. What we must do in the future is learn from our past,” Tissaia says through gritted teeth and Calanthe loosens her hold on her weapon, letting it thunk on the ground. 

Yennefer watches as Calanthe lets out a strangled cry followed by a sob. Tissaia glances toward Yennefer who works to steady her breathing, dragging her eyesight down to see the steady drip from Tissaia’s palm. Before she can say anything, Tissaia drops to the grass on her knees, reaches out, and brings Calanthe into her. 

It’s confusing and heartbreaking and all the other words that Yennefer can quite find to assign to what’s happening before her. 

Tissaia lays her head on Calanthe’s wild mane, uses her good hand to hold her tight. It doesn’t matter that she has just tried to wipe the world and start it again. It doesn’t matter that she’s wounded a version of a woman from two different worlds. What connects them all, the thread that winds around their wrists and ties them together, is they’re all just trying to make it in a man’s world. They’ve had to claw and rake for everything they have and have lost even more than they care to say. There are dark holes in each of their lives, cavities that Yennefer assumes will never be filled. The best they can do is live with the life they’ve been given. 

Yennefer plops to the ground, grabs Sabrina’s hand nearby. Tissaia walks up to them all slowly and Yennefer can see the wound at her breast. She rises and grabs hold of her, heedless of what the real Tissaia will think or say. Fluttering her hands over it, she says a healing spell that barely manages to stop the bleeding. 

“Sorry,” Yennefer apologizes and feels tears starting in her eyes. 

“You always were quite shit at it,” the Tissaia not in her arms playfully pokes and how, how are the two of them ever going to get back to where they were before all of this? Now that Calanthe has settled and looks sapped of everything, Tissaia stands and brushes off her dress, coming to the two of them. She eyes herself and then sighs. “You’ll take care of things from this side, I assume?” 

Tissaia nods wordlessly and releases Yennefer under the other woman’s scrutiny. If she wants to comment, she doesn’t. 

“Thank you for taking care of Yennefer,” Tissaia says softly and then averts her eyes to quickly gain her composure again. She holds a ripped piece of her dress on her gashed palm and offers a small smile. Yennefer feels the pull to try and heal her too. “I’m forever in your debt.”

“Maybe I in yours,” Tissaia answers back, holding a hand across her injury and another extended out. 

Yennefer watches as the two women share an awkward handshake and slowly back away. When they pull away, Yennefer is met by Tissaia’s pained face. “We must go now. I’ll get the portal ready, but the link must be destroyed once we walk through. This must be done to protect the constructs of time.”

“I know,” Yennefer admits quietly. She has no idea what she’s walking back into, what she might be leaving behind. Tissaia picks up on this and looks uncomfortable. 

“I’ll give you two a moment,” she tells Yennefer and walks away. 

“You’ll take Sabrina back with you?” the Tissaia in front of her now asks, her voice rocky. She’s struggling with what’s coming up too. 

“Yes,” Yennefer tells her and then reaches for her hand. “Please, be careful. I cannot bear to think of anything happening to you once I’m gone for good.”

“You’ll have me in another life though?” It’s laced with a hope Yennefer doesn’t feel. 

She looks toward the woman she’s always known, the one that made her walk out of a pigpen, the one who has beaten and broken her until she’s emerged a better kind of new. The one who has morphed within her a thousand times over. Suddenly, Sodden seems like a lifetime ago. 

“I don’t know about that,” Yennefer counters. She sounds worried and she doesn’t like it. 

A hand reaches for her, presses itself against her heart. Yennefer closes her eyes, tries to swallow the growing lump in her throat. “Keep me here. I shall keep you in the same place,” Tissaia says. “I do hope things turn out how you want them, Yennefer. You deserve so much more than what you’ve let yourself have.”

And right now, Yennefer is doubting she will ever get to have it. She’s feeling Tissaia’s fingers against the steady thumping in her chest and how does it betray her and not completely stop from anguish? She wants to kiss the woman in front of her goodbye but the one that she’s known all her life is watching, no matter how disinterested she tries to appear. Yennefer can feel her eyes flicking over when she dares to feel bold. 

Yennefer lets go and walks over to the portal that Tissaia has conjured behind them. Her face is sympathetic but a little clouded too. Yennefer doesn’t feel like explaining why despondency is all she can seem to muster. She reaches to Tissaia’s sliced palm, turns it up, and looks into her eyes. It’s hard to discern the difference from the ones she was just looking in.

“This needs healed,” she offers quietly. They share a look before Tissaia pulls away and Yennefer feels herself grow colder. 

“Sabrina first,” Tissaia nods with her head in Sabrina’s direction who still lies unmoving on the ground. 

Yennefer strains but manages to lift her, holding her slumped in her arms. Every muscle burns and she slowly works her way to the front of the portal. Tissaia touches her lightly on the shoulder and then shuffles the Aretuzan girls through first, afterward disappearing herself inside of it. Yennefer chances one last glance at the Tissaia across the field. 

The woman offers a pained smile and then drags her hand back down to press over her own chest. Yennefer doesn’t open the link between their minds because there’s nothing to be said that Tissaia hasn’t already figured out. 

As far as goodbyes go, Yennefer supposes it’s the best type of one that can be said. She enters the portal with tears blurring her vision and feels the link cut between herself and the other version of Tissaia forever. 


	8. Eight/Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home is where the heart is?, big changes, retracing steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to every single person who took the time to kudos or comment (multiple times too!) I am forever grateful for the feedback. It fuels me to do better, to do more in the future.

Sabrina is sent straight to Aretuza to receive more treatment for the dark visions and words that plague her mind. Yennefer however refuses the offer to return, feeling stuck on the Temerian field where it feels as if she’s died. 

She’s being dramatic about it, possibly, but the luster of life seems to be off. Everything holds a dullness to it that Yennefer had ignored before. The differences feel pronounced, unbearably sharp in a reality that doesn’t seem real anymore. 

Tissaia frowns when she declines to go back. She looks around the blankness for miles and motions. “And what do you plan on doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Yennefer snaps back. She refuses to meet Tissaia’s eyes. “How long was I gone?”

She remembers the severity of this world before she left behind and sighs, responsibility hitting hard. It occurs to her that she’s left one place behind to step into another that is just as unfamiliar. 

“Months. Time doesn’t always move the same in other realms. What were only days to you have been weeks here. Things have changed,” Tissaia admits. “They are no longer the way that you left them in.” When Yennefer’s face twists, Tissaia clarifies. 

“The Nilfgaardians did what they always manage to do-they got greedy and stretched themselves too thin. The problem with trying to build an empire is that every facet of it can not be controlled at once, therefore leaving some areas open to threats. The Redanian, Kaedwinian, and Temerian forces have come to aid. They’ve pushed the Nilfgaardian army back past the Amell mountains. As of now, it looks as if the continent is starting to settle itself down.”

“So it’s won then, the war?” Yennefer asks. 

“Does anyone ever really win when it comes to ambition and destruction being entwined? I know we worked for the interests of the Northern Kingdoms, but any loss of life to war is too much.”

“Your regard for life is confounding considering the eels that power the pits of your Aretuza,” Yennefer remarks. 

Her heart feels dark and swirling with the chaos. She’s full to the brim, in danger of spilling over. To take on the shape of a piece of a puzzle and then find out the edges of you don’t fit. It’s the same story as much of her life, cruel to the bitter end. Yet somehow, it manages to drag on despite her acceptance of it ending at Sodden. 

Tissaia looks flustered at Yennefer’s comment, her jaw working overtime as Yennefer watches her quell her anger. It must take an extreme amount of control for her to not bite back a retort. 

“I think I shall make camp here for a few days, clear my head,” Yennefer finally tells her tiredly.

They remain silent for what feels like forever. Eventually, Tissaia lets out a resigned sigh. “Well then you better make it for two.” 

She breezes by Yennefer and makes her way down the path to the Chotla. The trickling waters are audible from where Yennefer stands and oh, how it would feel to sink into them. Perhaps to never come up for air.

She doesn’t call after Tissaia, doesn’t question her at all. Instead, she watches the sky change into its nightly shroud and when the cool breeze begins to creep, at last she moves to begin building their camp. 

-—-—//———

By the time Tissaia has returned, Yennefer has conjured two large tents and worked to smooth out the ground enough so she doesn’t light the entire plain on fire. The sparks of the kindling snap on the air and buzz upward like fireflies escaping into the night. 

If she’s impressed by the spread, Tissaia never says. Yennefer points to the tent that will be hers, beyond pretending that the secret desire of having them share one is a possibility. Even the mere suggestion of it would be outrageous now with Sodden a dimming memory. 

It’s hard not to notice the wet tendrils of Tissaia’s hair or the lack of her usual attire, instead changed into something less restrictive and comfortable. Yennefer looks to the way she carries her hand and chastises herself a little for not being more vehement to help bind the wound before now. Or heal it. 

“The gash at your hand needs attention now if you’re so inclined to fix it,” Yennefer says quietly. 

“There’s little to be done,” Tissaia sniffs and sits down an arms length away. It might as well be a whole world in distance. “There are no herbs lying around currently and I’ve depleted my magic from conjuring the portals and closing off the link between them.”

“You could at least let me try.”

“And what good did that do with the other version of myself?”

The weight of where they are feels like lead. Of shackles binding her feet. She wants to dig inside herself and offer Tissaia her own words back to her said long ago in a room in Rinde:  _ how did we get this way?  _ It’s a different kind of mourning but one that still cuts from stem to stern. 

Something in Tissaia changes though, a part of the glacier sliding away or a piece of ice falling off into the water. Her face softens by degrees and she scoots over to where Yennefer has remained. Ascertaining how best to approach, she finally comes to Yennefer on her knees. Yennefer hopes her violet eyes aren’t brightly flickering in the night as Tissaia brings her hand up to eye level and unfolds her cupped palm. 

The edges are torn and the skin is angry everywhere she gripped the blade. While most of the bleeding has been staunched, the tissue below lays exposed and raw. 

“Oh,” Yennefer breathes. “Why didn’t you say something? This looks to be pure agony.” She ghosts her own hand over the length of it. Feels guilty. 

“It was a foolish thing to do, grabbing her sword,” Tissaia dismisses with a slight wave of her other hand. “But I couldn’t stand by and watch her hurt you.”

Oh. 

Yennefer shifts, takes Tissaia’s hand with care into her own. Even a touch as simple as this holds great magnitude and Yennefer can hear the blood rushing in her ears. Her thumb traces the unmarred areas because she cannot help herself, just like apparently all those months ago when she ducked through the people milling about the keep to enter into where Tissaia had been. 

Trying to jar the memory loose, Yennefer shakes her head and speaks the spell, watching as Tissaia’s body works to mend itself. The skin comes back together and creates a white swath across her flesh. 

“It’s going to leave a scar,” Yennefer says by way amends. 

“The things worth it always do,” Tissaia replies, a whisper on the night. Her blue eyes hold Yennefer against a metaphorical wall. 

Are they growing in this space or shrinking? Yennefer is having a hard time telling. Holding the woman’s hand will do little more to help Yennefer figure it out though, so she eases her own grip away. Putting some space between their bodies also becomes a necessity. It’s too much to have her closer than she’s been now in months (days?). Yennefer doesn’t need to take back the subtle floating of her scent, the shifting of her eyes or the moisture on her lips. It’s equally as hard to deny the craving of touch. The battle for restraint will be lost if they continue to occupy the same space. 

Yennefer backs away and looks out into the darkness, digs the toe of her boot in the ground and unroots the grass from its grip on the land. “All of my life, I’ve worked to guard myself. To not let anyone get close and not get close to anyone. It’s that double-edged sword I’ve carried at my hip for as long as I can remember because I didn’t like to feel anger or pain or hurt.” She sighs and looks at Tissaia in the flickering light. “Yet I feel as though my heart is what is weakest in me.” What she could add might tilt the world.  _ I couldn’t keep you out. _

“Yennefer, what are you trying to say?” Tissaia asks carefully and Yennefer can see the swirl of many things in her eyes, can practically close her own and hear the cadence of her heartbeat. 

“Nothing,” Yennefer recovers quickly, suddenly embarrassed by her frankness. She throws the blades of grass she’s plucked from the ground to the side and rubs her hands over her face. “I’m a little tired. I think I will try for a bit of rest.” 

It’s hard to move past Tissaia who has remained kneeling in front of Yennefer in a frustrating display of submission. Yennefer tries to lean away as she stands and makes her way to the open flap, Tissaia’s voice stops her, making a hopeful flutter. 

“Yennefer?” her voice calls out. 

She turns her purple eyes to her then, sees Tissaia’s mouth open and sound struggling to come out. Finally, she sighs heavily and offers her a thin smile. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Tissaia,” Yennefer says quietly and retreats from the woman’s watchful gaze. From her still remaining in her place on the ground. 

Once in her tent, Yennefer lets out a suppressed sob. 

-—-—//———

Yennefer leaves her tent and makes her way down the river bank to where the edge of it gives way to the craggy effaces of the sloping peaks. It feels odd to be back, to be where she has come from, when everything feels so uncertain still. The loneliness of the scant wood and the undulating water make her withdraw deeper into herself, the wailing yearn of what’s not there a reverberation in her body. 

It’s afternoon but the light is gray and Yennefer steals a glance at the two tents standing on the horizon and dips into the tree line to put some space between them. She walks on the needles littering the ground and listens to the birdsong prickling the tops. It provides the backdrop for her darker descending thoughts. 

She’s lost time, too much to feel any good, and there is no way to remedy it. She feels as much a stranger here now as the world she left behind. The one that had to cease a way to return to. Otherwise, she is sure that the incessant pull of that world would be the end of her in this one. No doubt, she would go under because of the flesh of a woman’s thighs, the size of her heart, the heat of her lips. 

Yennefer braces against a tree and tries not to be overtaken. She’s meters away from the person she’s been aching to get back to and can only long for another version of her on some other plane of time. 

“This is very morose of you,” a voice calls out and she spins to see Tissaia ambling her way. 

They’ve not seen each other this morning, Yennefer pointedly hiding in her tent most of the early hours and Tissaia neither inquiring about the behavior or seeking her out. Yennefer watches as she comes closer, knee high black boots covering dark cotton pants. A long tunic like covering sits atop a crisply laundered blouse and her hair is pulled back in her typical style. 

“What?” Tissaia frowns and looks down at herself. “You’re staring.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you wear breeches before. In fact, I’m positive you’ve never deviated from those confining dresses you always seem to cover up head to toe in,” Yennefer recovers and waves off. 

“A lot’s changed,” Tissaia shrugs. 

“You’ve no idea,” Yennefer laughs sarcastically. 

“Should I be concerned with your behavior since you’ve returned? You don’t seem yourself and quite frankly, it’s putting me on edge,” Tissaia finally spills out. 

“I can’t talk about it.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Tissaia battles back. She’s in front of Yennefer now, her eyebrows knit together in consternation. She grips Yennefer’s shoulder. “I worked so hard for you to find a way back to me and yet I feel as if you’ve never come out of the portal. Where are you, Yennefer?”

Tugging away, Yennefer puts some distance between them. It’s not really fair to be angry with Tissaia for the things another version of herself gave, but Yennefer is—very much so. Her chaos boils within her and she has to shove at it constantly to keep it from flowing over. Tears threaten but do not fall. 

“Am I really here? Because some part of me didn’t come out of that portal!” Yennefer finally admits. 

Tissaia looks troubled and  _ good _ because that’s exactly how Yennefer wants her to feel. She wants her to wonder what Yennefer has seen and she wants her to revisit the time they’ve had together and she wants her to regret so much that it keeps her awake at night where Yennefer can hear about it. 

“Talk to me or how am I to ever help you?” Tissaia tries. Her eyes are pleading, but she doesn’t move from her spot. 

“You stand back to back against yourself and never once ask me about her,” Yennefer says and finally, a tear does fall. 

“It’s because I don’t know what to,” Tissaia comes closer again. She tries to hold Yennefer up as she falls to her knees. Frustratingly, she follows Yennefer to the ground. “What are you not telling me?”

“I kissed her, Tissaia,” Yennefer gulps and Tissaia becomes still. Yennefer swipes the tears coming in earnest now and looks right into Tissaia’s frightened and confused eyes. “She was tough and beautiful and unrelenting and warm. And I got to kiss her and touch her and hold her and I will never be the same again.”

She laughs in anguish and closes her eyes. The image of what she’s left behind floods into her mind and every second she lets it assault her mind is another second she wilts a little more. 

“Show me,” Tissaia says then and Yennefer’s wet eyes open. 

“What?”

“I said show me. Even though it might kill me to know, I feel I must if I’m to ever move forward with you,” Tissaia tells her. She leans in and places an ungloved hand against Yennefer’s cheek.

So Yennefer does. 

She opens the link to Tissaia’s mind, unlocks her own, and starts with the series of events that have plagued her on end. There’s the portal and being underneath Tissaia with a dagger at her throat. There’s the time spent in the stacks researching and the spells they’d worked to perfect. There’s kissing Tissaia in the soft light of the fire and feeling her fingers against her bare hips. There’s waking up with her on top and the remnants of Yennefer’s words about this Tissaia fading as she scrambled to get even the smallest bit of her that she could keep for her own. It’s ache and pain and clench and pull and when it comes to an end, they’re both working overtime to get the breath back that’s left. 

“Much more than a kiss,” Tissaia mumbles and looks down, let’s her shoulders slump and her hands fall from Yennefer’s cheek. 

“Don’t you see it, you incredibly stubborn woman?” Yennefer pulls her line of sight back so that they can look in one another’s eyes. “I’ve fallen in love with someone because I wanted them to be you.” 

Tissaia wrenches away and stands, a ball of pulsing energy. Yennefer can feel the things building in her, the things she’s pushed down and away, and all she can do is close her eyes and give Tissaia the time to deal with them.

“I warned you, at Sodden,” Tissaia points and her voice is watery much like her eyes. “You knew that I could not give you what you sought, that I couldn’t let myself lose control. Love? Gods, Yennefer. It’s only been seven days.”

“Fuck your control,” Yennefer says with hurt forming every word. “It’s been months here.  _ Months _ you’ve had to grow used to the idea of a you and a me. I’m the one who’s only lived a week since Sodden. Moreover. I’ve spent almost my entire life with you. This is not something created from mere days. It’s been growing inside of me for years. If you feel nothing for me, fine. That was a chance that I was willing to take when I came back. But from this moment on, you will never be able to do away with the fact that I’ve been chasing after you all this time. Yes, my ways were never very clear, even to me, but I cannot go one more day in this wretched life I’m destined to live without you knowing exactly how I feel.

“So, say the word and I shall leave you and your control here. I’ll not bother you anymore and we can truly unknot ourselves from one another’s lives.” 

Tissaia’s hands are on her hips and she’s breathing erratically. Yennefer falls to her backside and places her open palms behind her to lean back. The weight of the things she’s carried fizzes out of her wonderfully. She can handle the ache of no Tissaia if she is free from the burden of her secrets. 

“You’d do that?” Tissaia whispers. Yennefer can hear the incredulity in her voice. 

“I’ve given you the years of my life that you can handle. If I’m alone in my feelings, then I’m afraid moving forward would only be difficult for us both.”

“It sounds as if you’re ending a relationship with me when one never began,” Tissaia huffs haughtily. 

“Only because you wouldn’t let it!” Yennefer shoots back but it’s the last thing she gets to say because by then, Tissaia has crossed the space between them and has fallen to her knees, taking Yennefer’s face in her hands. 

When she kisses her, Yennefer can taste the salt of the tears from Tissaia’s cheeks, the sweetness of the pipe she must have secretly smoked earlier, the wine even farther on the back of her tongue. Yennefer dare not move her hands or count the ways of how kissing Tissaia is both exactly and not at all the same. 

“I’m so incredibly green with envy of her,” Tissaia chokes out on a whisper. “You’re enamored with her and I can only wonder where my own inadequacies lie in comparison. I want to be more for you, Yennefer. Truly.”

“You’re mad,” Yennefer says to her and kisses her again. “The entire time I was with her, I was imagining this. Of being with you. Of you wanting me. I wanted you so badly and she made me feel like it were possible.” She tilts Tissaia’s chin up, makes her look into her eyes. “Is it?”

“Here you are again, only wanting everything,” Tissaia laughs magically and shakes her head. 

“I’ve told you all along that’s what I was after. But now, after it all, I think my everything is you.”

“You’ve turned soft,” Tissaia smiles. 

“Only for you. Besides…” Yennefer grabs Tissaia’s waist and pulls them together roughly. “You more than make it for it with your hard edges.”

“Which you’ve managed to see and overlook it seems, Tissaia shakes her head. 

She rests her palms on the front of Yennefer, looking up at her with a mix of emotions. 

“So what say you then, in regards to the two of us?”

“I wish it were easy to arrive at an answer.”

“So, you need time.”

“A little, at the very least.”

“I shall wait as long as you need then.”

-—-—//———

The answer, it turns out, comes rather quickly. The darkness hours have always been alive and ripe with moments otherwise not performed in the day and it has decidedly become a comfortable skin to be in.

Groggy, Yennefer rolls from her stomach and face being buried in a pillow. Her sleep ridden hand wobbles a bit in uncertainty as it works to move her body toward the quiet noise of the tent flap and the voice piercing her dreams. 

The lantern glow of the tent is weak at best and Yennefer has a hard time going from asleep to recognizing Tissaia’s silhouette in front of her. A confused look screws up Yennefer’s face and when she speaks, her voice is thick from slumber. 

“What hour is it? Is everything okay?” 

Wordlessly, Tissaia takes a few steps closer and holds Yennefer’s eyes. The silence grows, stretches to a great length, and Yennefer can handle little of whatever it is that’s happening right now. Just as she’s about to turn over with a huff, a throaty reply comes to rest itself inside her ears. 

“I have your answer,” Tissaia says. 

Yennefer has only seconds to shake her senses awake due to the significance of the topic at hand before all good focus is exiting the tent via the flap. Fabric drops down the bends and curves of the small body in front of her and leaves it exposed. Every slope and line makes Yennefer’s mouth go dry. 

She rises to her knees, shuffles to the end of the bed, and sucks in a breath at what’s before her. How have they gone from a lovely but simple kiss to this? To Tissaia completely bare in front of her? It’s too good to be true and Yennefer’s stubborn brain can’t believe what it’s seeing. Her mouth voices it.

“I’m trying very hard not to be incredibly daft right now considering you’re standing before me like you are but…” Yennefer stops when Tissaia reaches for her hand and holds it in hers. She looks down and sees Tissaia’s muscular calves and pale thighs. She intentionally skips looking more than a glance between her legs, moving instead to the flat of her abdomen and the beautiful curve of her breasts, the comfortable temperature doing little to stop the pebbling Yennefer agonizingly doesn’t run a finger across. “I feel as if we’ve missed a few steps in between.”

“I’m standing before you naked and you see this as a time to question it?” Tissaia stares at her in disbelief. She quickly grabs a garment off of the chair nearby Yennefer and shrugs it on, but then sees how sheer it is and basically pointless. She looks down at herself. “Were you planning on entertaining someone or do you always dress like this at night? Honestly, Yennefer.”

Yennefer is like a fish gulping for air on the surface and she feels Tissaia’s anger undulating off of her in waves. She feels rejected. Yennefer gets that since she’s been there herself, but she has to do this right or else it’s not worth doing at all. “I am usually a little more active at night, so yes.”

“I’m trying to be active with you  _ now _ and yet it seems I’m adding clothing. Isn’t this what you want? Isn’t it what you’ve been asking me for since Sodden?” Tissaia huffs, clearly embarrassed at the rebuff. She sits in a nearby chair and crosses her legs. The thin fabric falls away and Yennefer has to calm the throbbing between her own legs. 

“I didn’t explicitly follow you to sleep with you, but yeah, that night I would have,” Yennefer admits since they’re talking, finally, about what’s going on between them. 

She stops suddenly and watches Tissaia. Her brain thumps with the memories of her alternate, the one who wasn’t afraid to work through things. This one is though, has been all along. Is Yennefer dreaming? Has she even made it back at all?

“You slept with her,” Tissaia accuses. “And that’s why you’re…” 

_ Denying me. _ That’s how she wants to finish the sentence, Yennefer can tell. But she doesn’t. Yennefer sits down on the edge of the bed across from Tissaia, dares to reach out with a finger, and brush aside the material draped over Tissaia’s thigh. 

“I did not,” Yennefer says slowly, works her way back toward Tissaia’s front. Tissaia’s breath hitches and her eyes close. “But I almost did.” It rushes out fast.

Yennefer’s hand is batted away and the look on Tissaia’s face is severe now. She shakes her head and lets out a mirthless laugh. “Never any restraint…”

“I’ve been restraining myself since Rinde,” Yennefer shoots back. “And yes, I may have kissed her and...a few other things but there are still things that will be unique to you and I. Because you are not the same. Is that what you’re worried about?”

Tissaia’s brows furrow and concern etches her features. “I just want to be enough. I cannot be someone else, even another version of myself. I will never live up to it and…”

Yennefer stops her by pushing her leg from atop the other one, hooking her fingers at the edge of the gown to drop it from her right shoulder. Purple eyes watch as Tissaia’s lips part, her head tilting to look down at what Yennefer has started doing to her body. Her head is almost resting against her shoulder as Yennefer picks up her leg, runs a hand along her calf, and puts her lips where her hands have been.

“Within me, I have only ever wanted you,” Yennefer sighs happily against her skin as she kisses the tops of her thighs and then puts a palm on each of her hips. Her purple eyes burn and Tissaia rests a hand against her cheek. She can’t help but turn into it. “I think I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”

The admission is frank, probably crazy too, but she’s been through so much in her life that waiting even another second to let the truth into the open seems impossible. “Let me show you that tonight, Tissaia. Let me show you every day for the rest of our lives.”

The infinite expanding ability of her heart is something incredibly new and wholly beautiful. How long it’s taken to get here, how the world opens when Tissaia parts her legs and Yennefer is able to touch her beyond end. 

The two of them become big actions and small sounds then. Yennefer treats Tissaia’s pale skin like the finest thing her hands have ever had the pure grace of touching. She’s high on the noises Tissaia makes in her ears and yes,  _ yes _ , this is the inevitability that’s always been. 

She doesn’t treat Tissaia as if she will break, like a delicate flower in danger of losing her petals. Underneath Yennefer’s hands, she’s a goddess and she treats her as such. Her legs are slender but sculpted, the angular slope of her hips delicate, her abdomen sucks in when Yennefer touches there, the soft but warming gasp she lets go when Yennefer traces a hand across the pebbling wonder of her nipples. But the best part, the absolute epitome of wonder, lies within her stark blue eyes.

Yennefer never stood a chance against her, was created anew by the trust that Tissaia put in her, has always quietly held. This is the life that they were destined to live, wrapped limb and naked limb entwined. 

So Yennefer may come with borderline tears in her eyes and Tissaia might do the same with chaotic awe in hers. Yennefer may know the absolute exact way her skin smells and the way she tastes and this feels like the culmination of a life finally able to be lived well.

“I love you,” Tissaia whispers quietly as they lay together after, their skin slick with sweat and one another. 

_ Finally _ , Yennefer thinks. She knows, just  _ knows _ , Tissaia will never cease to be everything. She tastes her lips again, breathes out the reciprocation of Tissaia’s words.

**\--Epilogue--**

When she wakes up, she dresses meticulously, scrutinizing her appearance in the mirror for longer than she should. What she’s about to do is beyond important, so she wants to make sure she gets it right. Tissaia owes her that. 

Pulling on a pair of gloves and making sure she has a coin coffer at her hip, she summons a portal straight to Aedirn. Her destination is one she’s been dreaming about for weeks on end-It’s unassuming shacks and simple people. Yet, it holds the greatest of treasures. 

She rents a cart from a stable man, a well-bred horse to hook it up to. Climbing up in the seat, she snaps the reins and begins to make her way. 

The faces are grim as she moves along and she can understand how hardship has strapped itself to the townspeople’s backs. They may be simple folk, but they know the way of hard work and toiling to get only a little yield. It’s what makes this place what it is. Vengerberg offers nothing to anyone for free. 

The farm is not far from the main town, a little off the central street. Wooden boards are in various states of condition, most barely managing to keep the large sows and hogs noisily rooting around in the mud. So far, the only signs of life that she can detect are animal in nature.

She pulls back on the reins to stop the cart and hops down into the mud. Her shoes will be a mess, no doubt, but that’s the least of her concerns when her heart can barely contain itself inside of her chest. It goes into overdrive when a figure rounds the side of the house and startles. That’s when purple eyes come to rest on Tissaia, standing less than poised and mouth agape, breath absent. 

She’s younger, but the features are unmistakable. The same dark hair, only shorter. The same set of her jaw when she’s cautious and defiant. It’s hard to think this version of her, the slightly less than perfect one, has nothing to look forward to but her days as a pig merchant’s daughter. Someday, maybe a tavern owner’s wife. In a town like Vengerberg, there is little chance to rise. 

Her wary eyes narrow and she finally speaks. “Who are you and what do you need?” 

“I’m a…”  _ Rectoress at Aretuza _ she almost says. But that means little to those who don’t know magic so she forgoes the explanation. “My name is Tissaia de Vries. Someone very dear to me has told me a lot about you.”

Her face is skeptical and she throws back her shoulders to stand taller. No deformation on her spine prevents this. The mysterious ways that other paths in life can deviate…

“I know of no one. I barely leave the premises. Who would have come into contact with you that could possibly know of me?” Yennefer asks. 

As she’s about to answer, a man comes out of the door. He wipes his hands on the apron at his waist and sends his own wary look her way. Quickly, he glances to Yennefer and jerks his head for her to move away. Instead, she turns back to Tissaia and locks onto her eyes. 

“Can I help ya with something?” he says gruffly. 

“I’ve come looking for Yennefer,” Tissaia tells both of them and she sees the surprise wash over the girl's face. Of the fact that she knows her name. Above her, she hears a snort. 

“Hah, you mean that piglet there? Not worth her weight in food, she is. A snippy mouth and shit for brains when it comes to followin’ orders. What could you possibly want with her?” the man practically guffaws. 

Tissaia steps a bit closer to Yennefer, in favor of ignoring the man completely now-no matter who he may be. It’s hard not to reach out and touch her, to calm her with an assuring hand. But she has to remind herself that this is her life she is still living and not another one. This Yennefer doesn’t know her at all. 

“I know this will sound rather confusing, but I believe that you and I are linked throughout many lifetimes. Some may call it destiny, others fate. Whatever the case, I believe that you and I belong together,” Tissaia tries to express. 

This belongingness has yet to take shape in the world they’re in. While it would be a wonderful dream to attain what she’s had a sampling of, she would be presumptuous to think that things might look exactly the same as before. But how is she to know if she never tries? So what if Yennefer never comes to learn magic. So what if she is never able to have her as a lover in her bed. Being together is better than not knowing one another at all and Tissaia is going to try her hardest to make that happen. 

“What are ya driveling on about?” the man sneers from the porch and Yennefer doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t turn around. 

Instead, she steps closer to Tissaia. Meets her toe to toe. She stands a good bit taller and could be intimidating if she simply carried the confidence to do so. What Tissaia sees swimming in her eyes is loneliness, uncertainty, and the burning desire to feel something at all. 

“I know you,” she says slowly. Like the words should make sense, but they haven’t quite gotten to an answer yet. 

“Yes,” Tissaia breathes. “In other lifetimes, in other ways than this. Call me crazy, but I believe that I’ve come here to ask you to come home.”

“Where is home then, if not right behind me?” Yennefer hooks a thumb back toward where she came. 

There are several answers.  _ Thanedd, Aretuza, not the place behind you, nowhere at all _ . Tissaia says the first thing her heart tells her to. 

“Me.”

The girl’s eyes go wide and her mouth opens to speak but she’s cut off from forming any words. The man (Tissaia assumes this is who has taken up the father mantle) walks angrily toward them and takes hold of Yennefer’s arm. Tissaia glares at his hand and wants to shove the dagger at her hip into his throat. She doesn’t. 

“You’ll not tote her off without so much as a nod. You’d be walking away with a dowry not coming through my doors someday. Best I can hope for is maybe a cow or a few bales of hay for the animals. But you look like the type who might have a little more coin than usual. So I’ll ask ya…what’s this one here worth to ya?”

Resisting the urge to reach out and touch Yennefer’s cheek, Tissaia turns her cold blue eyes to the man at her side. Money, pride, whatever it may be, it will never be what Yennefer is worth, her value to Tissaia beyond measurable. Her words make their way from her chest again to hit the air and she drops the overflowing coffer from her hands onto the ground. 

“I’ll give you everything I have.” 

The purple eyes burn into hers. A smile pulls at the young girl’s lips.  _ I love you _ , Tissaia thinks but doesn’t say. This is their start. Their beginning has arrived. They’ll make it back to her unspoken words someday. 


End file.
